IR 05000445/1986010
| ML20237L043 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Comanche Peak  |
| Issue date: | 08/19/1987 |
| From: | Mulley G NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTOR & AUDITOR (OIA) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20237F760 | List:
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| References | |
| 50-445-86-10, 50-446-86-10, IEB-79-14, OIA-86-10, NUDOCS 8708200055 | |
| Download: ML20237L043 (53) | |
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FOR , ....,,, ] ;
Report of Investigation This Document is loaned to you For Official Use Onl Contents shall not be reproduce This document must be returned after it has served its purpos File N b~[
Copy N Distribution:
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OFFICE OF INSPECTOR & AUDITOR U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FREEDOM OF INFORMATION/ PRIVACY ACT EXEMPTION ......
FOR OFFICIAL USE Oh LY t D DO K 5 0 45 G PDR L . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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i RE'P ORT OF INVESTIGATION ALLEGATIONS OF MISCONDUCT BY REGION IV MANAGEMENT WITH RESPECT TO THE COMANCHE PEAK STEAM ELECTRIC STATION BACKGROUND On March 19, 1980, Coninissioner James K. ASSELSTINE met with the Acting Director, Office of Inspector and Auditor (01A), to refer to 0IA a number of allegations of wrongdoing by Region IV officials concerning the handling of safety issues at COMANCHE PEAK STEAM ELECTRIC STATION (CPSES). These allegations had been brought to Commissioner ASSELSTINE's attention by current and former NRC employees and NRC contractors. OIf, was concurrently informed of the allegations from sources outside NR On March 19, 1986, OIA interviewed H. Shannon PHILLIPS, a Senior Resident Inspector at CPSES, regarding his concerns about the way Region IV was reg-ulating the construction of CPSES. PHILLIPS alleged that he and other Region IV inspectors were being pressured, harassed and intimidated by Region IV management to delete or downgrade proposed findings in draft inspection reports to make the TEXAS UTILITIES GENERATING COMPANY (TUGCO), the applicant for CPSES, look bette During the interview, PHILLIPS asserted he had been intimidated almost to the point where he believed he could not write independent draft reports based on his inspections. In support of this assertion, PHILLIPS discussed specific instances in which he alleged that harassment and intimidation by Region IV management resulted in violations proposed by PHILLIPS and other inspectors in draft inspection reports being unjustifiably downgraded in final report (Attachment A~is a list of proposed violations that PHILLIPS alleged had been inappropriately downgraded or deleted from inspection reports by Region IV management).
After reviewing the information provided by PHILLIPS, 0IA combined the specific instances of alleged wrongdoing into a general allegation that:
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Region IV management harassed and intimidated inspectors to pressure them to downgrade or delete proposed inspection findings at CPSE Additionally, based on our review of the information provided by PHILLIPS, OIA identified other issues that warranted OIA investigation. Two of these mat-ters, which did not relate specifically to CPSES, were an alleged violation of the Freedom of Information Act and allegations pertaining to the Fort S Vrain Nuclear Generating Station. These allegations will be handled by 0IA in separate reports. PHILLIPS raised two other issues involving CPSES which OIA determined warranted review during this investigation:
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The Region IV Quality Assurance (QA) Inspection Program at CPSES was inadequate; and Data documented in Region IV's NRC Form 766, Inspector's Report, was
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SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIVE FINDINGS NOTE: This report is divided 'into sections that separately report our ,
investigative findings and conclusions regarding each of the three general allegations. In each instance, the technical aspects of the allegations and the testimony regarding the allegations were reviewed by 01A's technical advisors. Their comments are attached and should be read in. conjunction with each section of the report. Additionally, the first section is organized by specific inspection report. The discussion of the inspection reports is followed by a sumary of interviews regarding Region IV management's attitude toward enforcemen Allegation I: Region IV Management Harassed and Intimidated Inspectors to Pressure Them to Downgrade or Delete Proposed Inspection Findings at CPSES PHILLIPS was interviewed and stated that since September 1985 he has been harassed by Thomas F. WESTERMAN, Chief, Region IV Comanche Peak Group, concerning his inspection findings at CPSE He believes he has been harassed to the point where he has almost been intimidated into writing inspection reports containing only what WESTERMAN wants, instead of writing independent draft inspection reports based on his findings of TUGC0 compliance /non-compliance with regulations and then submitting the report to management. In PHILLIPS' view, WESTERMAN seemed to have total backing from Region IV manage-ment concerning how inspection reports were written. PHILLIPS was afraid he might be removed from the CPSES project unless he cooperate PHILLIPS also learned there were several other inspectors who had been subjected to similar treatment by WESTERMAN while conducting and documenting inspections. PHILLIPS commented that the disagreements he was having with WESTERMAN were more than technical differences of professional opinio Without providing any valid rationale, WESTERMAN wanted PHILLIPS to downgrade or delete proposed findings from inspection reports. He asserted that when WESTERMAN disagreed that a violation should be written, he would wear down the inspector with incessant argumen PHILLIPS believed WESTERMAN's motivation for not wanting to document findings against TUGC0 was WESTERMAN had taken it upon himself to make sure CPSES was licensed. As support for his belief, PHILLIPS stated that in mid-1985, when WESTERMAN first arrived at CPSES as the new group leader of the NRC COMANCHE PEAK Group, WESTERMAN told PHILLIPS there was nothing wrong with COMANCHE PEAK and, in facts it was probably one of the best built plants in the countr PHILLIPS asserted that WESTERMAN constantly defended TUGC0 and gave ground ,
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grudgingly when adverse findings were identified. PHILLIPS considered WESTERMAN's attitude not to be one of a diligent regulator but one of a defender and promoter of the licensing process (Attachment B, pages 6, 148-153 and 159-161).
PHILLIPS discussed the following specific instances of alleged harassment and intimidation by WESTERMAN as a result of inspection findings:
Inspection Report 50-445/84-32; 50-446/84-11 (84-32/11)
When interviewed by 0IA concerning inspection report 84-32/11 PHILLIPS asserted that WESTERMAN told him " Region IV managenent would never forget this
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inspection." PHILLIPS said he replied to WESTERMAN that he was unhappy with the enforcement policy in Regi.on IV and was looking for another job, and WESTERMAN said he thought that was a really good ide '
According to PHILLIPS, the purpose of the inspection was to audit the TUGC0 corporate office to assure the applicant was properly managing QA activitie The Region IV inspection determined that TUGC0 was understaffed to run an effective audit program and TUGC0 management had not comprehensively reviewed the status and adequacy of their QA program between 1974 and 1984. During the inspection, the TUGC0 QA manager told PHILLIPS that 84-32/11 was the first in-depth " audit" of the TUGC0 corporate GA program that the NRC had done since the construction permit was issued in 197 PHILLIPS documented the results of his pection_in draft report dated __.,
October 15, 1984 On November 2, 1984 '
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PHILLIPS'( g at the time, came to CPSES.tg review t inspection r rt with PHILLIP According to PHILLIPS, , jagreed that PHILLIPS' inspection findings were supported and, in fact 7 thought the report was too low-keye PHILLIPS opined that because the NRC had not performed a comprehensive inspection of TUGC0 corporate headquarters in ten years, TUGC0 thought it was doing a good job in the absence of being told differentl PHILLIPS considered NRC to be the real problem. Because TUGC0 was new in the nuclear field, PHILLIPS believed good inspections by the NRC were neede PHILLIPS related he was at Region IV Headquarters a short time after the inspection report was written, and WESTERMAN sought him out to discuss and take issue with the inspection report. WESTERMAN defended his own actions and those of Robert G. TAYLOR, a former Senior Resident Inspector at CPSES while WESTERMAN was the supervisor of the CPSES project, and stated he did not believe they had failed to perform the required QA inspections. PHILLIPS pointed out to WESTERMAN several QA inspection procedures that had not been completed at CPSES, and WESTERMAN became very defensiv 'In1985.WESTERMANreplaced[ ' as Chief, Region IV Comanche Peak Grou In January 1986, according Eb PHILlIPS, WESTERMAN brought up the report again and stated, " Region IV wi 1 never for9et this report". PHILLIPS inferred this statement to be a threat. PHILLIPS said he mentioned again to WESTERMAN that he was trying to transfer to another NRC region because of the intense pressure, and WESTERMAN again replied he thought this was a good ide PHILLIPS related that no findings were changed in inspection report 84-32/11 (Attachment 8.Pages9,10,13,21-24and28).
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r Region !Y, was interviewed port 84-32/ ~ \. js ted that at the time of the inspection, he was the, .. . , . . . . . Regl6'n~IV Comanche Peak Group, and was responsibleforinspecfionsatCPSE. As a result of inspection 84-32/11,a number of findings were identified. Several of the findings pertaining to the status and adequacy of the TUGC0 QA program and the establislynent gd implementatiqo of -
thehe a said TUGC0considered audittheprogram findings towere Jobe by( ificant bec considered be s'gn significan the quantity Ynd qua'ity of QA records at CPSES had already been questioned by the NRC Technical Review Team (TRT).
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lagreedfullywiththeinspectionfindings. He recalled working for ( about eight hours with PHILLIP.S to help put the findings togeth sure they were in the proper perspective. In fact, after ireviewed the draft findings from a supervisory viewpoigt, '
he thought th findings had mere significance than asfindings originally jdidnotreceiveanyresis-tance to the inspection fromwritte Reg ' Yon IV management, and he was unaw of any comments that may have been made by WESTERMAN to PHILLIPS concerning the inspection report (Attachment C, pages 4-8 and 11-16).
Thomas F. WESTERMAN was interviewed concerning his involvement with inspection report 84-32/11. WESTERMAN related that he was generally familiar with inspection report 84-32/11, and it was his understanding the inspection was done as a follow-up on miscellaneous allegations that had been assigned to Region IV as part of the TRT activitie WESTERMAN had some involvement with the inspection report in June 1985 with respect to what was going to be done concerning the findings in the repor WESTERMAN discussed the inspection report with PHILLIPS to obtain background information and believed PHILLIPS told him the report was more negative than first intended. Beyond asking PHILLIPS for background information, WESTERMAN said he had no further involvement with the repor WESTERMAN stated the report was written in a very nega'tive fashion. WESTERMAN
' stated he did not make the statement to PHILLIPS that " Region IV will never forget this report." He said that was a conclusion PHILLIPS drew himself, adding that he had heard PHILLIPS make the statement himself. WESTERMAN was not worried about any problems the report may have caused TUGC0; however, he th'ought the report was overly critical. WESTERMAN believed the report would lead the reader to believe TUGC0 did not have an audit program. In fact, although it may not have been, effective, TUGC0 did have an audit progra WESTERMAN stated PHILLIPS had mentioned a number of times that he was looking for a position outside of Region IV. He recalled that one day, after he and PHILLIPS had discussions for a period of time, PHILLIPS said "I'd be better off if I had never come to Region IV; if I had gone to headquarters."
WESTERMAN said he gave a very honest answer, "Maybe you would have been."
WESTERMAN stated he never told PHILLIPS, "You better leave Region IV."
WESTERMAN said his comments were not intended as a threat (Attachment D, pages 67-76 and 105-112).
Inspection Report 50-445/85-071 50-446/85-05 (85-07/05)
PHILLIPS told CIA he was directed to drop a trend analysis of the NRC inspectijn at CPSES from inspection report 85-07/05. PHILLIPS was asked byg ,p._ do a trend analysis of the NRC inspect am at CPSES to incluit vie ions and unresolved items. PHILLIPS sai __progIwanted to review unresolved items at CPSES that had been documented m '!egion IV ring inspections to termine if any of them should gave n violations. PHILLIPS believed ( nted this information becauset suspected violations were reported 4 unresolved items so TUGC0 wou1F not. ave to formally document corrective action and would not be required to determine the cause of the deficiency or take corrective action. PHILLIPS believed this could allow an inadequate QA program to go undetected. PHILLIPS stated his trend analysis revealed adverse trends which should have been identified during NRC l
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inspection He added that these trends were comparable to the problems with the TUGC0 QA program, which were later identified by NRC Construction Assessment Team (CAT) inspection report 83-10/12 and the NRC TR to PHILLIPS that many inspection violations had been handled as unresolvedIt appeared item ,
The results of the trend analysis perfogned by PHILLIPS were documented in a January 13, 1986, memorandum from t toJOHNSON(Attachments). PHILLIPS also included the results of the @end afalysis as Item 18 in a draft of ,-
inspection report 85-07/05 (Attachment F).
PHILLIPS said WESTERMAN directed s him 85-07/05to delete the paragraph on the trend analysis from inspection report -
because the analysis would subject the NRC to embarrassing question Because PHILLIPS the paragraph drolped th did not contain any violations or unresolved item this without aragrap However PHILLIPS 1pter 1 rned WESTERMAN did concurrence. PHILLIPS though wanted the results {
of the anal s in inspection report 85-07/05,and j results sh IILLIP also thought the !
Id be documented in the report because the work was done during j the inspection period (Attachment B, pages 37-40 and 76-85).
PHILLIPS continued with his discussion of inspection report 85-07/05 by i claiming ILL he was pressured to agree with changes to the inspection repor $ explained the inspection was conduc'ted under the supervision of i egio and Doyle M. HUNMICUTT, Section Chief, Reactor Projects Branch 2 IV, by PHILLIPS; struction at CPSES; and .E. Cl# MINS, Sqior Resident Reactor Inspector Con-
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After the inspection report'had been completed and signed by the inspection team WESTERMAN began to interject hims int the report process. PHILLIPS added that WESTERMAN started to pressu to change his findings that were documented in the inspection report and STE also exerted pressure on PHI PS to agree with him instead of with: Accordin to PHILLIPS, 5-07/ viol.ations included:
that were deleted by WESTh rom inspect on report
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Failure to Translate Design Criteria Into Installation Specifica-tions Procedures, and Drawings; and Failure to Control Deviations from these Standards; -
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Failure to Maintain Tolerances Stated and Failure to Report these Results on a Nonconformance Report; l
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Failure to Audit RPV Specifications / Procedures. Installation and As-built Records; and -
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Failure to Properly Identify a Spool Piec In addition PHILLIPS was concerned that WESTERMAN did not require TUGC0 to
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respond to his violation that:
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No objective evidence (records) that concrete mixing blades had been inspected quarterly since trucks were placed in service in 197 l PHILLIPS noted that two of the findings dropped as violations from the report, i.e., (1) " failure to maintain tolerances stated and failure to report these s
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results on a nonconformance report." and (2) " failure to audit RPV specifica-tions/ procedures, installation.and as-built records," were never challenged by TUGC PHILLIPS asserted that, even though the utility did not take exception
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to the proposed did not think they violations, WESTERMAN elected to drop the findings because he were violation Additionally, PHILLIPS noted that the proposed vio)t[ ion garding " failure to properly identify a spool piece" was identified byL , uring the period of the inspection, April 1 - June 21, 1985; however, even t ugh the inspection was over, the utility contacted Region IV about the end of August or the first of September 1985 with additional information to demonstrate compliance with ;
the requirement. According to PHILLIPS, WESTERMAN directed that this input be considered and the violation droppe '
Because PHILLIPS began to feel uncomfortable and pressured by WESTERMAN as the resultinspection from of discussions reportthey had concerning the deletion of proposed violations 85-07/05, he prepared four, memoranda to the file dated December 4, 1985 March 6,1986. March 10,1986, and March 12, 198 PHILLIPS
' said these memora,nda discuss disagreements he had with WESTERMA (Exhibits 6, 7 and 8 to Attachment B .
PHILLIPS noted that Thomas YOUNG, a Region IV consultant, overheard some)of the conversations between PHILLIPS anI during which PHILLIPS detected what he considered to be veiled threats by '
WESTERMAN (Attachment B, pages 85-94, 102-118, 132-148, and 154-159).
(YOUNG was not able to comment specifically about conversations between WESTERMAN and PHILLIPS regarding inspection report 85-07/05; however, he related to 0IA that he. was present during discussions between WESTERMAN and PHILLIPS concerning inspection report 85-14/11 and the findings involving the BISCO fire seal See summaries of YOUNG's interview with OIA on pages *26 and 49 of this report).
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port)was interviewed by OIA and stated his involvement with inspecti 85-07/,05 was with the planning of the ins repor wetion and preparation of the An inspection plan was develomd to loot at some specific items at CPSES, with the intent of obtaining a wtter understanding of the COMANCHE PEAK project as a whole, and to look at areas where weaknesses had been noted.
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At the conclusion of the inspection in June 1985, an inspection report was drafted. The first draft was completed in October 1985. A copy of the draft {
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report was then sent by the inspection team for review by Region IV WESTERMAN and JOHNSO Subsequent to October 1985 WESTERMAN assumed position as Chief, Region IV .Cognche Peak Group. Therefore, the re gers)
not going to be signed b was I
_j port)to ensure the findings were properly addressed.tated
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Although the final inspection report was issued in February 1986; between October 1985 February 1986, the report had gone.through reviews a zd changes whic . 7, was not iavolved with. After the report was issuedy ;
jnoted it dis different from the draft report and different from de..inf,prsation he provided {
the licensee during the exit meeting in June 198 asked for his input or opinion concerning these cha(nges. )said he was never -
Accordingto(tha draft report originally there were ten items of noncompliance in the report was issued, recysideredtobeviolations. Mcwever, when the final feted that fivePof the ten items remained as
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violatiogs, thqee were downgraded to unresolved, and two were deleted from the repor iguestioned JOHNSON an downgrading thd proposed violations. g~WESTQtMAN kas told that for concerning the rationale for the two items that were deleted from the report, subsequent inf provided by the utility in January 1986 resolved the violations. gnaali additional activity was not n6ted in the inspection repo. told OIA that this Idid not consider this appropriat rt.( '
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was not able to determine the basis on which three of the proposed
~' violations assoc 14ted w th installation of the Unit 2 reactor pressure vessel mere emcesdowngraded, between the " dates' ealso questioned report JOHNSON and WESTERMAN about differ-was signed J000tSON basically told him it was management's(prer said WESTERMAN and usy they wante ""
also noted that a para bespedtton program at CPSES (graph documenting PHILLIPS' review.of NRC'si.e., the
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final inspection report.;Ttii1Jnfonnation had been provided to the licensee at the egit. setting, and , jdid not know why it was deleted from the final report.. . opined tiat alt' hough the current Region IV Administrator appears fo be afi objective regulator, there were manage bel _otthat level that did not seem to be as objective as they should be. ~ . stated he was tired of individuals making excuses for why the utility cann'ot meet regulations. He believed Region IV had trouble addressing the big issues, and the bigger the issue the less likely it would be addressed (Attacliment pages 16-77).
,, .. _. .. _ b panticipation i nspection report 85-07/0 . ... lated that the first (inspection he participated performed an in at CPSES inspection of the was 85-reactor 7/05 During pressure vessel this inspection, and internals
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[YorU t 2reported and the the reactor res ts coolant of his pressure inspection boundary of thesesystem two areasfor Unit in inspection
~ % por 85-07/05. I lated that as a result of his inspection, he documented a violation volving installation of the Unit 2 reactor pressure vessel. Additionally, he documented two findings which he later agreed to delete from the report as a result of information provided by the licensee several months after the completion of the inspectio *
insiieIc~ rstedcethat between October the time the draftfina 1 or 2,1985, re1rt report was signed by the was issued on f January 28,1986 ESTERMANreplace{gpd at CPSES as the Chief, gion.!Y l Comanche Peat . ~T On several occas.io,ns ~ WESTQtMAN dj,gcussed wi the fact that t iviolation
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unresolved item . . .
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ntedtochangesomeof._,~_E$5DRMANwasbasedon pined that this actiotr by - i additional informa on p vided by the utility after the conclusion of the inspection, and because WESTE and yan BARNES, the team leader who worked for WESTERMAE, disagreed wit interpretation of the requirement . Event 11 gree f'ndings conc #ning t)he installation of the reactor vessel l
'.whichg e y, had documented as violations were changed to unresolved item jdid not believe these changes were appropriate because he thought he j had' developed sufficient infonnation to cite violation '
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also noted that when the draft inspection repor cont (ining these three Moladons was originally prepared, it was approved b land HUNNICUTT, the Region IV,manag"rs responsible for the inspection that* tim Additionally, )did not believe the comment in the inspection report "the
- inspector considers this matter unresolved," pertaining to the three findings concerning installation of the reactor vessel, was tru ) explained that when WESTERMAN discussed the findings he wanted changed with him, he told IESTERMAN the findings were valid and if WESTEREwagted changes made, then he would have to make them himself. Therefore d did not believe it was correct for jfje regort to attribute to him the Net that the findings were maresolve additionally related that as a result of his discussions with WESTERMRN, sev'eral items he had documented as unresolved were deleted from the inspection repor (Attachments.Pages4-54).
IESTERMAN related to 0IA that he was very familiar with inspection report 85 07/05. He said the inspection was conducted between April 1 and June 21, 1985, and the report was provided to the division director in late August or >
early September 1985. WESTERMAN reviewed the report and instrut:ted Ian BARNES and Lawrence E. HENSHAW, Team Leader. Comanche Peak Group to review:the report and provide comnents on its technical content. He then returned the draft report with his comments to PHILLIP WESTERMAN explained that when he reviewed the draft report, he had questions concerning the accuracy of some of the violations cited in the repor IESTERMAN did not think a violation pertaining 'to retrievability of certified material test reports (CMTR) was valid because the regulations did not spe'cify records had to be readily retrievable, only that they had to be retrievab1 IESTERMAN noted that his experience has been that, although TUGC0 might not have the fastest retrieval system. TUGC0 has always been able to come up with documentation if the NRC went to the right person. WESTERMAN noted that TUGC0 eventually provided the records requested by the NRC inspectors. WESTERMAN has had no problem with TUGC0 finding records, other than the utility was slow. Although antiquated, their system always worked. Consequently, because retrievability was not defined in the requirements with respect to an amount of time. WESTERMAN did not see anything to be gained by writing a violatio With respect to PHILLIPS' proposed violation regarding TUGC0's failure to
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audit the reactor vessel installation. WESTERMAN stated there was no absolute requirement that the utility perform an audit of this specific activit Additionally he stated that because this issue had previously been identified by the TRT. ne wanted to make it an unresolved itea pending TUGCO's response to the TRT's finding. WESTERMAN stated that generally the effectiveness of audits of this sort was questionable because audits do not catch everythin WESTERMAN asserted that to have a violation the NRC must show that a require-mest was not met. IESTERMAN knew of no specific requirement which stated the reactor vessel must be audited. However, during questioning by 0!A he was not aware if the reactor vessel was scheduled as part of TUGCO's audit plan or if TUGCO's audit plan satisfied 10 CFR 50. Appendix B. Criterion XVIII. Als WESTERMAN stated that he did not have PHILLIPS review the TUGC0 audit plan to determine its adequacy or to see if it required an audit of the reactor vesse j WESTERMAN told OIA that he relied on Ian BARNES, who was a member of the Region IV Comanche Peak Review Group, and BARNES' knowledge of the ASME code l
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to resolve a question concerning a violation in the inspection report involv-ing the deferral of a hydrostatic test on the cold leg subassembly. WESTERMAN stated it was BARNES who indicated to him that the inspectors were technically incorrect and did not understand the code. WESTERMAN stated that because it '
uns a piping subassembly, and not a compon'ont under the code, it was accept-ablo for TUGC0 to delay conducting the hydrostatic test untti the entire system was assembled in the field. For this reason, WESTERMAN deleted this finding from the inspection repor ESTERNAR did not consider the failure by TUGC0 to mark a spool piece with the ,
material specifications, heat number or heat code to be a violation involving -
the lack of traceability. WESTERMAN stated that the proposed violation as e written did not state there was no marking on the spol piece; the violation stated the spool piece had not been marked with the material specification, host number or heat codes. WESTERMAN stated it was not necestiry for this .
information to be marked on the spool piece to have traceability, in that any teentification mark on the piece could establish traceability. WESTERMAN stated that subsequent to tw conclusion of the NRC ins section ity located a mark on the spool piece and showed it to PHILIPS a the - .
inspectors. WESTERMAN asserted $e na provided sufficient 1 ion of the spool piece and PHILLIPS andi reed. WESTERMAN commented that if the ettlity provides information b the- C before a final ins is issued, he considers the new information and, if warranted,pection drops the report' ,_'
proposed violatio ,
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ESTENMAN'noted that after PWILLIPS made the changes to the fi'rst draft i
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inspection report, WESTERMAN suggested it be returned to the ion to be .
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. The report was then returned to TPSES to be signed pector '
commented that PHILLIPS signed for himself and fo ad expressed no reservations. The report was then returned to ion to be concurred with and issued. The concurrence rocedure involved forwarding the report to the Office of Nuclear Reactor ation (NRR) and the Office of the -
Ezecstive Legal Director (ELO) at NRC Hea uarters. WESTERMAN stated that
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based on comments msalting from the NRR review, he decided he would not require TUGC0 to reply to a Level V violation concerning concrete mixer blade Concerning the violation pertaining to TUGCO's failure to translate design I
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criteria into installation specifications, procedures, and drawings, WESTERMAN stated this violattom uns initially questioned by Charles MAUGGEV, an NRR consultant assigned to mytow Region IV draft reports on CPSES. NAUGglEY i wrote on the draft 'Isn't a traveler a form of instruction?" WESTERMAN
' concurred with 's question and believed the traveler used by TUGC0 to
' install the reactor vessel was a controlled instruction. All chpnges to the j traveler were concurred .in by Westinghouse (the manufacturer of the reactor i vescol) and changes to the installation requirements did not require a formal '
design control review with accompany.ing signature :
l Additionally, WESTENEWI did not agree with PHILLIPS concerning the need to write a sionconfomance report for changes to clearances stated in the traveler i
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shoesclearances because the between travelerthe reactor could vessel in be changed support brackets the field, andtosupport according the ;
I plant procedure for the preparation, approval and control of operations
. travelers. However, epon questioning by 0!A WESTERMAN could not describe the
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TUGC0 change process concerning travelers, nor could he describe or summarize the installation specifications. Also. WESTERMAN could not verify if the travelerspecifications design specified all were the critical components, and he did not know if the on sit issue as unresolved to allow the inspector time to acquire sufficientIn the final r ,
information about Westinghouse's design criteria in order to convince WESTERMAN there was a violatio to the inspecto WESTERMAN left the resolution of this issue
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Concerning the trend analysis of the Region IV inspection program at CPSE WESTERMAN related it was deleted from the report based on a consent from NRR c that in.their opinion the paragraph did not describe a trend review. When WESTERMAN asked PHILLIPS why he had included the analysis in the repor PHILLIPS replied he wanted to account for the time he spent preparing the analysi WESTERMAN thought the information could be applied to PHILLIPS'
inspection the program, inspection report. however, he did not believe the information belonged in analysis would opee tNe NRC to a lot of embarrassing questions. WEST WESTERMAN indicated to PHILLIPS thet it would be a subject in the Atomic Safety and LicensingBoard(ASLB)hearingforCPSESandwouldresultinalotofneedless question (-
WESTERMAN noted that every change made to" inspection report 85-07/05 from the !'
time PHILLIPS reviewed and,the with the, inspectors signed it on October 1 and 2, 1985, was inspectors'.
report was go ng to be changed.He asserted the inspectors knew exact 1 how the WESTERMAN related that while using t cover -
sheet which h d been signed by the inspectors in October 1985 on the final inspection report was not the most ideal thing to do, he considered it an acceptable way to facilitate the issuance of the final inspection report. On the cotwurrence for the Region IV letter of transmittal for the inspection report. WESTERMAN signed for PHILLIPS.
I with the report because PHILLIPS told WESTERMAN that heWESTERMAN nough of the believe ,
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I report, specifically the part of the report that change pro violation on the reactor vessel to an unresolved ite STE sai indicated that he may not fully agree with downgrading the violation, if that was what management wanted to do. then he concurred.
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l WESTERMAN noted PHILLIPS later provided WESTERMAN with a memorandum stating that even if he l si ed the inspection report' he was on1 concurring that management !
ri changes. WESTERMAN noted
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a e reart was discussed wit repo . raised questions concerning the c)anges he noted in tb WESTERMAN writing a violatio commented that there are different ways the Region can' approach ;
He said you can write a violation that may not be a violation and wait for the utility to respond as to why it is not a violatio i
- WESTERMAN further stated that on some other plants he might take more liberty in writing the violation, but that in the case of CPSES he was going to be very correct. tight in the violations and make sure the violations are absolutely -
WESTERMAN explained that because CPSES was in the ASLB process and with cont'ested could hearings,incorrec argue was technically he did not want to write a violation that the utility WESTERMAN further stated that would make unnecessary paperwork and could even raise questions regarding the Region's credibility and technical competency during the ASLB hearin (Attachment D. Pages 113-208).
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Charles J. HAUGHNEY, a consultant employed by NRR, was interviewed by OIA concerning his involvement with inspection report 85-07/05. HAUGHNEY stated his involvement was principally as a reviewer of the draft inspection repor After his review, HAUGHNEY relayed his comments to Region IV. HAUGHNEY noted his comments concerning the draft inspection report were made in marginal notes on the repor Concerning the proposed violation regarding the failure to translate design criteria into installation specifications, HAUGHNEY stated that, although he never inspected the traveler written to install the reactor vessel, he opined that it could have provided specific enough instructions for the construction activity. Consequently, his question on the draft inspection report asking if the traveler was a form of instruction was intended to determine if, in fact, the traveler used by TUGC0 was detailed and equivalent to an instruction or procedure. HAUGHNEY said his comment on the report was not opinion, it was a question to be answered by Region I Concerning the proposed violation pertaining to failure to provide objective evidence to show that central and truck concrete mixer blades were inspected, HAUGHNEY stated that he thought it was unusual for an inspector to look at concrete mixer blades because the safety-related concrete work at CPSES had been already completed. However, HAUGHNEY noted that possibly the NRC inspec-tion procedure for concrete on CPSES Unit 2 had not been completed; therefore, it would have been a perfcctly understandable effort by the Senior Resident inspector to complete this construction inspection progra HAUGHNEY said the citation as written, stating that there was no documented evidence in the form of records that the quarterly checks on the blades had been done, was, in and of itself, an explicit violation of 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion V. However, in partial mitigation of the finding was
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the fact that the actual condition of the blades was good. Consequently, HAUGHNEY considered the importance of the finding in the 1985-1986 timeframe to be pretty minimal. When viewed from the broad context of all the issues that were ongoing at CPSES, HAUGHNEY opined that Region IV had been under a great deal of criticism by the interveners for a number of years for not having done a complete job on inspections. From the standpoint of its appearance to the public, it seemed an unwise use of NRC resources to raise a ,
relatively minor administrative issue on something that happened years in the pas l I
HAUGHNEY acknowledged as valid the argument presented by PHILLIPS that if the licensee failed to maintain records in one area, then it may have failed to maintain records in other areas as well. However, at CPSES there was already a litany of examples where they failed to follow procedures. HAUGHNEY opined !
that had the inspection found the condition of the mixer blades to have been poor, then there would have been broader implications concerning the quality l of the concrete. HAUGHNEY stated he told WESTERMAN it was a clear violation !
(Attachments). l lan BARNES was interviewed concerning his involvement with inspection report ,
85-07/05 and stated he was asked by WESTERMAN to review the report and make l technical comments. BARNES conducted a limited review of the report and I identified to WESTERMAN areas he thought were questionable. BARNES believed !
that when he reviewed the inspection report it was still in draf !
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Concerning the proposed violation that a spool piece had not been marked, BARNES recalled telling WESTERMAN that he thought the inspection was in erro BARNES stated that based on his knowledge of the code, there was no'
requirement to maintain the material specifications, heat humber, and heat code of the material on a piping assembly. BARNES recalled that the inspector found a mark number on the spool piece in question, and BARNES asserted that this mark number, in itself, provided total traceability. BARNES stated that his reading of the ASME code did not indicate that the item had to have heat number Concerning the proposed finding involving the deferral of a hydrostatic test on the cold leg subassembly, BARNES stated he believed the inspector was in error and did not understand the ASME code. BARNES quoted from various parts of Section 3 of the ASME code to support his belief that the hydrostatic test of the subassembly was not required prior to the hydrostatic testing of the full assembly. BARNES believed he was told the NRR opinion verified that his understanding of the code was correct (Attachment J, pages 7-25).
Thomas SCARBROUGH, Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board (ASLAB), reviewed the concerns expressed by PHILLIPS that violations proposed by PHILLIPS and other inspectors in inspection report 85-07/05 were unjustifiably downgraded to unresolved items by Region IV management. SCARBROUGH documented his technical assessment of these proposed violations on pages 11-18 of his July 8,1986, memorandum and pages 1 and 2 of his November 25, 1986,
, memorandum (Attachment HN)..
- Stephen GOLDBERG, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer, who is detailed to OIA to provide technical assistance, performed a review of the technical issues contained in inspection report 85-07/05. He reviewed five issues that were specifically related to 01A as allegations by PHILLIPS. His assessment is documented on pages 2-9 of Attachment Inspection Report 50-445/85-14; 50-446/85-11 (85-14/11)
PHILLIPS was interviewed concerning inspection report 85-14/11 and stated WESTERMAN pressured and harassed him because of the findings in the inspection report. PHILLJPS stated the purpose of the inspection was to review the o
applicant's action on previously identified items and to look at the overall condition of the plant and equipment. While inspecting previously identified items, Tom YOUNG, a Region IV consultant, found significant problems with records. These problems then became the focus of the inspectio I A finding in the inspection report was that TUGC0 had shipped all original
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design records for piping to Stone and Webster, New York, without making a duplicate. The licensee also made no provisions to protect the records in route connensurate with requirements employed while the(ecords were stored onsit ~"
A similar finding was also identified by ,
Chicago Bridge & Iron (CB&I) records ' shipped fromtPSE$%jwith respect o Houston, to As Texa a result of these findings, site storage facilities were inspected and found to be in noncompliance with requirements. PHILLIPS provided OIA a copy of a memorandum dated April 29, 1986, that he had written to WESTERMAN. The memo addressed PHILLIPS' concern regarding the CB&I records shipped off-site and TUGC0 site storage facility. PHILLIPS' memorandum reconnended that the issues be forwarded to IE's @ Branch for review (see Attachment 00). ,
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PHILLIPS agreed with YOUNG's findings and defended them when WESTERMAN stated none of the findings were viol.ation PHILLIPS related that during the period of the inspection in October 1985, WESTERMAN argued with PHILLIPS in an
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attempt to convince him there was nothing wrong with the records. Addition-ally, PHILLIPS said WESTERMAN interjected himself into the inspection process by going to the utility to get more infomation in an attempt to defend the utility and prove compliance. Although WESTERMAN eventually agreed with YOUNG's inspection finding, he made PHILLIPS report other findings as unresolved items that PHILLIPS considered to be violation >
The first draft of inspection report 85-14/11 (Exhibit 10, Attachment B)
contained two violations (one with two parts), one deviation, and eight unresolved items for CPSES, Unit 1, and six violations, one deviation, and nine unresolved items fo'r CPSES, Unit 2. However, the final inspection report 85-14/11 (Exhibit 11, Attachment B) contained one violation,11 unresolved items, and two open items for CPSES, Unit 1, and three violations,12 unre- '
solved items, and two open items for CPSES, Unit 2. PHILLIPS further related that by the end of October 1985 WESTERMAN considered PHILLIPS to be a trou-blameker and told PHILLIPS he had started taking action by discussing the matter with management. PHILLIPS considered WESTERMAN's comment to the effect that "you make quite a bit of money, don't you" to be a threat (Attachment B, pages 163-183).
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[lnspecNrelated to.0IA that he participated in inspection 85-14/1 During his ion ,' 11 earned that all the containment liner and mechanical pene-tration rechPds wiffch had been generated on site Chic o Bridge & Iron had '
been shipped to Houston, Texas, for reproductio also discovered that these safety-related records were shipped in card rd a wood containers which were not fireproof or waterproof. Additionally,tQerewasnoinventory of the records :snd there were no back-up record violation; however, he did not recall how he init ly wMconsidered te the finding thisina '
the inspection report. The finding was eventually documented in the final inspection twport as an unresolved item which required no written response from the utility (Attachment G, pages 54-62).
Thomas YOUNG, a Region IV QA consultant at CPSES between August and November 1985, was interviewed concerning his involvement with Region IV inspections at CPSE YOUNG related that while he was reviewing changes to drawings at
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CPSES, he decided to check to make sure there was adequate documentation for the changes. As a result of asking for some records, he learned TUGC0 had shipped all original design records for piping to Stone and Webster, New York, without making a duplicate set. Additionally, there was no complete inventory i made of the documents before they were shipped. As a result of this finding.
l YOUNG inspected the TUGC0 site storage facilities and found they were not in
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compliance with requirement '
YOUNG reported his findings to PHILLIPS, who agreed the finding was a violation. YOUNG related that WESTERMAN did not agree with this finding and
" grilled" PHILLIPS on the issue for an estimated five hour YOUNG considered that PHILLIPS was to the point of being badgered. WESTERMAN asserted that TUGC0 was in compliance with the National Fire Protection Association ;
Standards; however YOUNG ahd PHILLIPS disagreed. These issues were '
documented is final inspection report 85-14/11 as unresolved item YOUNG l
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believed there was sufficient information available to cite TUGC0 for violations (Attachment I, page's 37-61).
WESTERMAN related to OIA that inspection report 85-14/11 pertained to records control by TUGC0 at CPSE PHILLIPS had provided WESTERMAN with a matrix of the differences between the draft inspection reports and the final inspection report (Attachment K). During his discussion with OIA, WESTERMAN referred to this matrix and a draft of the inspection report to explain his rationale for changes to the draft inspection report. Some of the changes discussed by WESTERMAN had not been raised as issues by PHILLIPS during his interview with OIA. WESTERMAN noted that as the draft inspection report was reviewed, each draft report was marked and returned to PHILLIPS. Some items were also discussed in great length with PHILLIPS. WESTERMAN also noted that prior to this inspection, the TRT and QA Branch, IE, were at CPSES and conducted a complete review of TUGCO's records control. As far as WESTERMAN knew, they uncovered no problems with TUGC0's records. WESTERMAN identified Cliff HALE as the person who was responsible for the QA portion of the TR The first proposed violation downgraded to an unresolved item in inspection report 85-14/11 concerned TUGC0's description in Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR) 17.1.17 of its current QA records system. PHILLIPS considered this to be a violation of 10 CFR 50.34(a)7. WESTERMAN stated he did not believe the standard review plan for FSAR 17.1 would require the amount of detail desired by PHILLIPS to be in the FSAR. Additionally, WESTERMAN noted the IE QA Branch had looked at the same area and had no problem with it. WESTERMAN told OIA that the FSAR section describing the TUGC0 QA records system for the design and construction of CPSES was in conformance with ANSI N45.2.9. WESTERMAN downgraded the proposed violation to an unresolved ite The next violation proposed by PHILLIPS was that the TUGC0 QA manual did not address ANSI N45.2.9 requirements. WESTERMAN stated the TRT review of this
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area, as documented in Supplemental Safety Evaluation Report (SSER) 11, found TUGC0 to be in compliance. WESTERMAN stated that the SSER indicated the QA manual did address ANSI N45.2.9, although, perhaps not in great detai j WESTERMAN considered this to be an unresolved item because of the disagreement l between PHILLIPS' findings and the SSE l The next items discussed by WESTERMAN were three proposed violations and one proposed unresolved item by PHILLIPS concerning the shipment of original design records from CPSES to a Stone and Webster office in New York. PHILLIPS l
found TUGC0 did not have or use procedures to control the shipment in cardboard boxes, no backup copies of the records were made, and TUGC0 failed 1 to control or account for the records transferred to Stone and Webste l
, PHILLIPS believed TUGC0 was in violation of 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion l XVII and did not conform to the requirements of ANSI N45.2.9.
l WESTERMAN stated that ANSI N45.2.9 did not clearly address PHILLIPS' issues I concerning the shipment of original records in cardboard boxes, not creating l backup copies and not controlling and accounting for the documents. WESTERMAN '
considered the Stone and Webster documentation to be in-process documents and not records because they were design calculations that were being sent to t Stone and Webster for reanalysis. However, WESTERMAN stated that because TUGC0 had committed to having procedures, he retained PHILLIPS' violation that TUGC0 failed to establish and implement procedures in accordance with 10 CFR
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50, Appendix B, Criterion V, which addressed required control and inventory measure The next items discussed by WESTERMAN were proposed violations by PHILLIPS concerning TUGC0's shipment of construction records pertaining to the containment liner from CPSES to Chicago Bridge and Iron (CB&I) in Houston, Texas. PHILLIPS' violations concerned his findings that TUGC0 did not properly control the shipment of these records because there were no backup copies and the records were not inventoried, and TUGC0 did not document an audit of CB&I QA records at the CB&I facility. PHILLIPS considered these findings to be violations of 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criteria XVII and XVIII and not to be in conformance with ANSI N45.2.9. WESTERMAN noted that at the time of the inspection, the records were in the control of CB&I, not TUGC0; therefore, WESTERMAN contended that neither 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion XVII nor ANSI N45.2.9 have specific requirements concerning the control of records during shipment that TUGC0 could be cited against. WESTERMAN opined that the records were shipped at the risk of CB& WESTERMAN also stated that the requirements were not clearly defined regarding the control of records in transit off-site. He added that NRC's ultimate concern was that prior to licensing TUGC0 have in its pnssession all records required by regulation. WESTERMAN further commented if the records were considered in-process documents, there would be almost no requirements controlling how they were stored while on-site, let alone during the short time they were in transit. When questioned about ultimate authority under 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion I, WESTERMAN stated that in his view, because CB&I was a vendor, it was TUGC0's responsibility to ensure CB&I complied with ANSI N45.2.9 and 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion XVII while the records were in their possession. Once these records were turned over to the utility they would be maintained for the life of the plant in accordance with ANSI N45. Concerning PHILLIPS' next proposed violation regarding TUGC0's failure to document a May 1985 audit of the QA records control system at the CB&I records facility, WESTERMAN related that after the NRC inspection was completed, he learned from TUGC0 that the audit had been perfomed; however, TUGC0 could not locate any documentation thereof. WESTERMAN, at that time, decided to make the finding an unresolved item until TUGC0 located the paperwor Subsequently, TUGC0 prepared a January 9, 1986, memcrandum to the file documenting the fact that a TUGC0 auditor had found no problems with the CB&I records control system. WESTERMAN accepted this memorandum and deleted the violation from the report. WESTERMAN provided OIA with a copy of the January 9, 1986, TUGC0 memorandum (Attachment L).
The next proposed violations discussed by WESTERMAN involved TUGC0's failure to preclude rain from entering the QA records vault over several years and tht failure to preclude fire hazards in the records vaul PHILLIPS was concerned that the records facilities were in violation of 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion XVII and did not confom to ANSI N45.2.9. WESTERMAN acknowledged that the roof on the records vault had leakad over a period of time, and the licensee had repaired the roof on several occasions. Additionally, TUGC0 immediately acted to remove the potential fire hazards from the records vaul !
WESTERMAN opined that the requirements in ANSI N45.E.9 were unclear and subject to interpretation in these areas. Additionally, WESTERMAN stated l j
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I there were no housekeeping codes or standards applicable to CPSES. These vio-lations were downgraded in the final inspection repor ;
The next issue was TUGCO's failure to provide a temporary or permanent storage )
facility for QA records that were commingled with in-process documents in the l
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paper flow group. WESTERMAN explained this violation concerned the installation of fire rated cabinets for storage of permanent record WESTERMAN contended that he could consider these QA records to be in-process records and not permanent records, in which case they would not be subject to i the requirements of ANSI N45.2.9. WESTERMAN stated the issue revolved around l the legal definition of a final record. WESTERMAN was not certain which l records PHILLIPS was referencing but he believed the records were the same 1 ones identified by the TRT in SSER 11 under allegation AQ 45. SSER 11 stated j that ANSI N45.2.9 did not address protection of incomplete or in-process l record documents. If these in-process documents were destroyed or lost, the l TRT had determined it would be the contractor's responsibility to reconstruct i them. The TRT also noted that when permanent plant records are taken from the l permanent plant records vault to record modifications to previcusly accepted 1 hardware, the records become in-process records again and are not covered by ANSI N45. WESTERMAN believed that the utility had the leeway to decide 4 how they were going to classify and handle their record Based on the j findings documented in SSER ll, WESTERMAN deleted this violation from the j inspection repor l The final proposed violation discussed by WESTERMAN was a finding involving weld rod control, i.e., labels taken off or lost on E-309 electrodes at the main distribution station. WESTERMAN referred to a memorandum prepared by BARNES as justification for deleting this violation from the inspection report ,
(Attachment D, Exhibit 12). WESTERMAN read from the BARNES' memo which stated PHILLIPS was informed by BARNES that the report was unacceptable because the proposed weld rod violation was the same issue that was previously documented as an unresolved item and closed out by PHILLIPS in the same inspection report. BARNES did not consider it proper to close an unresolved item on weld rod control based in part on a current Region IV inspection that showed no finding, then have a proposed violation on the same issue in the same repor Additionally, WESTERMAN stated that BARNES' memorandum noted that PHILLIPS agreed to drop the violation (Attachment D, pages 325-328).
WESTERMAN stated he was at CPSES about four days a week as part of inspection 85-14/11. He usually acted as a sorter of issues that were developed during the inspe'ction in an effort to determine where to go with the findings. He coordinated between the utility and NRC inspectors to ensure they were communicating with each other concerning inspection findings. He also arranged for meetings between the inspectors and TUGC0 to ensure the findings were properly identified and that TUGC0 had the chance to respond. WESTERMAN commented that the meetings served to get more information on commitments from the utility and to give the utility the opportunity to provide the NRC with information to ensure the inspectors were looking at the issues with the proper perspective. WESTERMAN considered this to be the normal way to conduct an inspection. He expected that when the NRC arrived at an exit meeting there '
would be no surprises for the utilit '
WESTERMAN related that although there was interface with PHILLIPS concerning the paragraphs of this inspection report that he was responsible for, most of
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the findings in the draft inspection report were written by PHILLIPS. After the first draft inspection report was prepared, he and PHILLIPS had dis-cussions and subsequent draft reports were then prepared., WESTERMAN said that during his discussions with PHILLIPS, WESTERMAN did not ask PHILLIPS to obtain additional information to further support violations WESTERMAN disagreed wit WESTERMAN believed that if PHILLIPS did not agree tha* a proposed violation should be downgraded, then PHILLIPS, as a Senior Resident Inspector, should have brought to WESTERMAN the facts that supported the violation. WESTERMAN also stated that for most of the violations proposed by PHILLIPS, if he thought additional information or another opinion was needed, then he would make the finding an unresolved item pending receipt of the additional guid-ance. WESTERMAN asserted that although the discussions he had with PHILLIPS may have become heated differences of opinion, he never pressured' or intim-idated PHILLIPS to drop any violation. In fact, WESTERMAN stated although there were disagreements concerning violations, no issues were dropped from the repor In commenting on the status of PHILLIPS' April 29, 1986, memorandum regarding certain issues identified by PHILLIPS in inspection report 85-14/11, WESTERMAN said he prepared his first memo by May 21, 1986 (this was a transmittal i memorandum addressed to PARTLOW from JOHNSON). WESTER # N said he wes' then )
directed by JOHNSON to write a memorandum that gave the Region's position on the i'ssues. WESTERMAN said that JOHNSON still had the memorandu (In l response to 01A's inquiry as to the status of PHILLIPS' April 29, 1986, memorandum, JOHNSON said it was in final form and that he still had i JOHNSON commented that it " kind of languished" because of all the other things to do for the investigation.)
WESTERMAN also commented that Eric JOHNSON was not involved with the various drafts of inspection report 85-14/11 except for discussions WESTERMAN.had with him concerning the findings and conclusions being drawn by the inspector According to WESTERMAN, JOHNSON never provided any feedback to WESTERMAN to indicate he disagreed with his position JOHNSON concurred with the final inspection report without comment (Attachment D, pages 208-348 and 515-571).
John GILRAY, Quality Assurance Branch, IE, was interviewed by OIA concerning the conversations that WESTERMAN stated took place between GILRAY and him pertaining to inspection report 85-14/11. GILRAY recalled a conversation he ,
had with WESTERMAN concerning certain QA deficiencies associated with records l at CPSES that were identified by a Resident Inspect,or. GILRAY opined that his conversation with WESTERMAN took place in early June 1986, and WESTERMAN was seeking GILRAY's opinion on how severe the deficiencies were. GILRAY stated that WESTERMAN did not reference an inspection report during the conversation, and GILRAY did not think that the conversation was related to an inspection report. He believed the conversation was related to recent allegations made by a Resident Inspector at CPSES. GILRAY said the deficiencies as explained by WESTERMAN were (1) transportation of records and the filing of records in the interim process prior to being stored in a final storage facility, and (2)
findings related to the construction of the fina records storage facilit GILRAY said the first deficiency, based on WESTERMAN's explanation, was not a violation. In regard to the second deficiency, he stated he was unsure of the l exact problem, but said that the applicant could use alternate methods
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(Attachment M).
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!an BARNES was interviewed concerning his involvement with inspection report
~85-14/1 Concerning the proposed violations regarding the shipment and storage off-site of Stone and Webster and CB&I records, the physical condition of the TUGC0 records storage facility, TUGCO's auditing of.C8&I's records, and L 3 the commingling of final records with in-process records, BARNES stited he J had only. moderate involvement with these issuer;, and he relied heavi19 on Cliff HALE's input. HALE was the deputy QA/QC->1eader of TRT. BAMES opined -
that the inspection report repeated basi,cally tne same information that wa contained in SSER 1 .
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Concerning the proposed violations identifieC bt \
hertaininf U e weld rod not identified at the main distribut Ma statfon, BANNES told OTA ne
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believed the proposed weld rod violation was the same as a previcus unresolved '
item PHILLIPS closed out in the construction appendix of'thesinspetion report. BARNES opined that either the unresolved iCem shou)d smafn open if the inspectors thought there was a violation c'r the unresolved. item should 'be
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closed and the violation dropped. BARNES discussed this mattei with PHILLIPS, and several sys 14 ter PHILLIPS infornec 1ARNES that he had discussed the matter wit land the violation was dropper BARNES instructed PHILLIPS
to continue o follow-up on the issue because the weld rods should be 4 identified. BARNES noted that he did not discuss his other concerns with inspection report 85-14/11 directly with PHILLIPS, He relaye4 this information to WESTERMAN who did,the necessary coordination (Attachment J, pages 25-45). q I
Cliff HALE, Project inspector, Region IV, was interviewed concerning his -
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involvement with inspection report 85-14/1L., J4 ALE stated 'tht in June 1535 ne was assigned to the Comanche Peak task force, 'and since that time he has had '
the responsibility for addressing QA/QC issues at CPSES. HALE comented that he did not review inspection report 85-14/11. Instead, he was involved in discussions concerning the appropriateness of proposed violati6ns. HALE commented that some of the discussions he twas asked to take part in dealt with the propriety of a finding regarding the handling of recouts bettg shipped off-sit The records were Stone and Webster and C84I recsrds. HALE was also involved in discussions concerning the design of the records facility and a determination of when a record becomes a final recor ~
Concerning the shi liALE spir.ed Diet, posed pment onof the the Stone and Webster information providedoriginal records tihim, once theoff-site, records were removed from the records vault, they became in t.rocess documents and pere not subject to the requirements of ANSI N45.2.g or 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Crfizrion XVII. Although he thoeght the utility used poor judgment and took a bi risk, HALE did not believe there wat a violation. HALE comented that if TU ' 0 had a procedure for handling then records which they violated, then j they could be cited for a violation of 10 CFR 50 Appendix 8. Criterion Regarding the shipment of all the C8&I site documents, HALE said that 'until the records became part of the utility's record system they would not be classified as site records subject to ANSI M45.2.9. HALE commented that if something happened to the site records during shipment, then CB&I would have to regenerate the records. Once a!)ain, if the utilit was violated, then the utility wou'd have a problem. y had a procedure that
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Concerning the proposed violation regarding TUGC0's failure to provide a temporary or permanent storage facility for records commingled with in-process records in the paper flow group, HALE commented that when records were taken from the permanent records storage facility they again become in-process documents. Consequently, they were no longer subject to ANSI N45. Therefore, he did not consider this a violatio HALE noted that although SSER 11 addressed an issue involving in-process documents in the paper flow group, it was not the same issue raised in inspection report 85-14/11. The difference was that in SSER 11, the records had never been entered into the permanent records center; however, in the inspection report the records were part of the permanent records center and were then removed and placed back inte the paper flow grou Conr.erning the physical condition of the records storage facility and TUGC0's h failure to preclude rain from entering the QA records vault, HALE commented t thMt ANSI N45.2.9 is not specific in this area. HALE acknowledged that it was a situation that needed to be corrected; however, he thought there were other means besides issuing a violation to get the utility to correct the proble Cosctrning the proposed violation that food stuffs and fire hazards were found in tte records vault, HALE said that he would have tempered the action based on the circumstances surrounding the situation. If the situation was a one-time occurrence then he would have verbally instructed the utility to correct the problem. If the situation had been goin issue a violation-(Attachment N, pages 6-63)g on for some time, then he would
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Thomas SCARBROUGH reviewed the concerns expressed by PHILLIPS that violations proposed by PHILLIPS and other inspectors in inspection report 85-14/11 were
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unjustifiably downgraded to unresolved items by Region IV management.
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SCARBROUGH documented his technical assessment of these proposed violations on pages 18-23 of his July 8, 1986, memorandum and page 3 of his November 25, 1986, memorandum (Attachment HH).
Stephen GOLDBERG performed a review of the technical issues contained in inspection report 85-14/11. He reviewed six issues that were specifically related to OIA as allegations by PHILLIPS. His assessment is documented on pages 9-14 of Attachment M Inspection Report 50-445/85-16; 50-446/85-13 (85-16/13)
PHILLIPS, when interviewed about inspection report 85-16/13, stated its purpose was a routine, unannounced inspection of CPSES, Unit 1 to review the applicant's actions on previous NRC inspection findings and IE Bulletins, the applicant's actions on construction deficiencies and a review of electrical inspections. PHILLIPS related that a Region IV consultant had been trying to inspect construction deficiencies reported per 10 CFR 50.55(e) and IE Bulletins dealing with hardware modifications. Because the utility could not produce auditable records concerning hardware modifications associated with 10 CFR 50.55(e) reports and IE Bulletins after four months, PHILLIPS concluded that TUGC0 records were not readily retrievable. PHILLIPS considered this a violation. According to PHILLIPS, WESTERMAN disagreed and stated that if the NRC gave the utility enough time, they could find anythin .
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Additionally, PHILLIPS stated that IE Bulletin 79-28 required a certain model and serial number NAMCO switch to be replace However, the inspection disclosed the actual switch replaced was not the switch identified by th paperwork. PHILLIPS considered this to be a violation. Another finding.that was considered to be a violation was a failure to revise all CPSES implementing procedures regarding 50.55(e) issues to conform to the TUGC0 corporate procedur PHILLIPS continued by stating that in December 1985, WESTERMAN took draft inspection report 85-16/13 to Region IV for review because PHILLIPS had findings written as violations that WESTERMAN had instructed him to write as unresolved items. Eric JOHNSON reviewed the draft report and wrote on the copy back to PHILLIPS directing that paragraphs three and four were not violations (Exhibit 17, Attachment A). JOHNSON wrote next to paragraph three of the draft report that "most of the apparent violations cited are not vio-lations. Records for the convenience of the NRC are not required." PHILLIPS considered the records asked for during the inspection to be records required by the NRC to be maintained. JOHNSON also wrote next to paragraph four of the draft report that PHILLIPS was " citing them for a potential hardware problem on NAMC0 switches - find out if there is a hardware problem or not - otherwise there is no citation." PHILLIPS disagreed with this comment because 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion XVII, required that the utility have records regard-less of whether or not there was a hardware proble PHILLIPS noted that draft inspection report 85-16/13 contained five violations for CPSES, Unit I and three violations for CPSES, Unit 2. In the final report, this number was reduced to no violations and a number of unresolved items which applied to both units. PHILLIPS commented that by the time the final inspection report was written, he had capitulated to the point where he believed it was best to present his findings in his draft inspection reports the way WESTERMAN wante It had become apparent to PHILLIPS that a Region IV Division Director (JOHNSON) was telling him not to write violations and to only write unresolved items (Attachment B, pages 199-215).
WESTERMAN was interviewed about his involvement with inspection report 85-16/13. The purpose of this inspection report was, among other things, to review TUGC0 actions concerning IE bulletins and construction deficiencie As with inspection report 85-14/11, PHILLIPS had provided WESTERMAN with a matrix of the differences between the draft inspection report and the final inspection report (Attachmen: 0). WESTERMAN referred to this matrix during his discussion with OIA concerning his rationale for changes to the draft inspection report. WESTERMAN noted that, as with inspection report 85-14/11, PHILLIPS signed this report, after which no other changes were mad WESTERMAN did recall, in connection with signing the inspection report, that PHILLIPS stated to him they could not continue with all the interaction between them. WESTERMAN replied by telling PHILLIPS that PHILLIPS was not making it any easie WESTERMAN related that the first group of changes included six proposed violations by PHILLIPS originating from attempts by PHILLIPS and an NRC contractor to follow up on corrective action on hardware taken by TUGC0 as a result of TUGC0 submitting 50.55(e) deficiency reports to the NRC. PHILLIPS and the contractor were unable to locate paperwork to perform the follow-u WESTERMAN said the violations proposed by PHILLIPS were (1) a failure to l
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develop and implement a procedure to show or reference objective evidence that 50.55(e) deficiencies were corrected; (2) a failure by TUGC0 to revise conflicting portions of implementing procedures concerning 50.55(e) reporting; (3) a failure by TUGC0 to maintain 50.55(e) files that were retrievable; (4) a failure b 50.55(e) reports, y TUGC0 to changes and report to to thecommitments NRC corrective actioncorrective regarding actually taken actionon reported to NRC; (5) a failure by TUGC0 to have a procedure (which WESTERMAN said duplicated the first proposed violation); and (6) TUGC0 files were not auditable with respect to corrective action on 50.55(e) deficiencie With respect to the first two proposed violations, WESTERMAN told OIA it was his position that there was no requirement under 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, to have a procedure to implement 50.55(e) reporting requirements. WESTERMAN added that the documents necessary to show closure of a 50.55(e) report are documents that are encompassed as part of the utility's QA program. WESTERMAN opined that PHILLIPS wanted TUGC0 to have a file for every 50.55(e) report which he could review to determine the status of corrective action and then close out the report. WESTERMAN knew of no requirement that directed the utility to have this information in files for the convenience of the NR WESTERMAN stated this information is part of the utility's nonconformance system that is maintained by QA. To the best of WESTERMAN's knowledge, TUGC0 maintained the status of all nonconformances; however, he did not ask PHILLIPS to determine that because PHILLIPS was not raising that questio Concerning the retrievability of records, WESTERMAN claimed the utility offered to guide the inspectors through the paperwork and locate the documents required by the NRC to show closure of each 50.55(e) report. However, the approach preferred by the utility was to gather together all the records concerning 50.55(e) reports into one comprehensive package so that a number of issues could be addressed at once. The utility requested time to put the package together. WESTERMAN thought that was a reasonable request by the utility, and the request for time did not indicate the records were not available. He added that putting all the documents together in one effort instead of piecemeal would also make better use of the inspector's tim WESTERMAN contended that instead of going to the TUGC0 records vaults and obtaining the records associated with the hardware, the inspectors wanted the utility to provide them with a list of all the documentation that they could quickly retrieve. Because the inspectors were not able to obtain the required documents, they were unable to accomplish the purpose of the inspection, i.e.,
inspect the hardware. However, because there was no urgency for the records as the plant was not pending an operating license, WESTERMAN left the records retrievability issue as unresolved until TUGC0 put all the records togethe WESTERMAN indicated that, in PHILLIPS' opinion, corrective action reported to the NRC on 50.55(e) reports must contain information that the utility J&s actually taken action. WESTERMAN contended that corrective action to close a 50.55(e) report only has to include the action the utility plans to take to correct the deficiency. WESTERMAN did not believe the utilit 's failure to provide a completion date for the corrective action on 50.55(y) e deficiencies was significant. WESTERMAN stated the corrective action will have to be l
completed prior to fuel load, which is the critical date. WESTERMAN considered the utility's failure to have corrective action completed by a certain date to be a deviation to a comitment and not a violatio _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ -
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As to TUG"0's failure to have auditable files with respect to corrective action on 50.55(e) deficiencies, WESTERMAN stated TUGC0 committed to form a task force to locate and put in a convenient place all documents TUGC0 would need to demonstrate close-out. It was never shown these recor9.r did not exist. Although not in a file that an inspector could put his hands on, WESTERMAN stated there have always been TUGC0 records to show corrective actio WESTERMAN commented that the second series of proposed findings concerned TUGC0's actions resulting from IE Bulletins. The proposed findings pertained to (1) TUGC0's failure to respond to all aspects of IE Bulletin 79-14, (2)
incomplete TUGC0 IE Bulletin files, (3) NAMCO switches referenced in IE Bulletin 79-28 not properly identified on travelers, (4) a deficiency in TUGCO's procedures to handle IE Bulletins, and (5) no focal point at TUGC0 to track IE Bulletin action WESTERMAN provided some background to this portion of the inspection by explaining he had asked PHILLIPS to look at the utility's response to all bulletins and to ensure all those still open had been inspected. This was done with the intent that PHILLIPS review the utility's response on all IE Bulletins and ensure the NRC had conducted the appropriate inspections of ha rdwa re. WESTERMAN opined that in performing this inspection, PHILLIPS concluded the NRC verified the utility's corrective action in most cases by only reviewing the documentation which supported hardware replacements or repairs. WESTERMAN disagreed with this overall conclusion. He stated he talked to some of the inspectors who had conducted some of the inspections on IE Bulletins and they told him that, when appropriate, they inspected hardware to ensure the utility properly took corrective action as a result of IE Bulletins.
! Concerning PHILLIPS' propos'ed finding regarding TUGC0's reported failure to respond to all aspects of IE Bulletin 79-14, WESTERMAN stated that when IE i Bulletin 79-14 was issued in July 1979, CPSES was in the early stages of pipe support work and, therefore, it was very difficult for TUGC0 at that time to properly respond to the Bulletin. It was WESTERMAN's understanding that PHILLIPS' contention was that TUGC0 never adequately responded to all aspects of IE Bulletin 79-14 in that the responses did not indicate that all seismic category I piping (regardless of size) would be evaluated to the action items in the IE Bulleti Additionally, WESTERMAN stated that PHILLIPS reported that TUGC0 never addressed the reporting of nonconformances as required in the Bulleti PHILLIPS referenced a TUGC0 internal letter, CPPA No. 24.163, dated October 22, 1982, in which an engineering manager wrote that the reporting of nonconformances was an area of the IE Bulletins that TUGC0 must take exception to and that TUGC0 would not identify nonconforming conditions. This exception by TUGC0 was not documented in their final report to the NRC. WESTERMAN stated that PHILLIPS believed the action taken on the bulletin was incomplete, and the , file was closed prematurely because the utility was taking exception and was not goirig to state the exception to the NRC. WESTERMAN related that PHILLIPS reported the finding pertaining to TUGC0's failure to respond to all aspects of IE Bulletin 79-14 as an unresolved item.
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Concerning PHILLIPS' contention that TUGC0's response to IE Bulletin 79-14 did not indicate that all seismic. Category I piping (regardless of size) would be evaluated, WESTERMAN believed that only high energy lines over one inch in diameter were computer analyzed by TUGC0 to limit the number of postulated q
energy breaks. Those lines under one inch in diameter were not computer .
analyzed and were excluded by the bulletin. WESTERMAN further noted that pipe and pipe support issues at CPSES are still being reviewed by Stone and Webster and NR Regarding PHILLIPS' issue that TUGC0 never addressed the requirement in the IE bulletin to report nonconformances, WESTERMAN opined that for a construction ;
facility, the reporting requirement is met by filing reports in accordance with 10 CFR 50.55(e). WESTERMAN stated that from his review of IE Bulletin 79-14, the reporting requirements for nonconformances appear to have been established for an operating plant. The reporting requirements for a facility under construction are not clear. Therefore, TUGCO's exception to the reporting requirements in IE Bulletin 79-14 were not appropriate for inclusion in TUGC0's reply to the NRC concerning the IE Bulletin. WESTERMAN removed this proposed unresolved item from the inspection report because he did not believe there was a potential for a violatio Concerning the second finding that TUGC0'IE Bulletin files did not contain sufficient records to show action has been completed, WESTERMAN stated that the IE Bulletin file maintained by the utility was not intended to track every piece of paper associated with the bulletin. That was accomplished by other
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systems. All the file was intended to contain was the response back to the NRC concerning what actions the utility planned to take in response to bulletin WESTERMAN noted that he and JOHNSON met at CPSES with utility management and obtained an oral commitment from the utility to review records to determine the adequacy of their procedures and completeness of associated records involving IE Bulletin Concerning PHILLIPS' proposed violation that NAMC0 switches replaced by TUGC0 per IE Bulletin 79-28 were not properly identified on the installation travelers, WESTERMAN stated that during this portion of the inspection an NRC consultant looked at equipment in the field to determine if it actually matched the documentation in the control center. The inspector found that two of the fourteen NAMC0 switches inspected by the NRC consultant were not
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properly identified on the documentation. WESTERMAN stated he believed that before the final inspection report was issued, he went to the TUGC0 QA supervisor and obtained documentation concerning the two NAMCO switches with which the inspector had a problem, WESTERMAN found that the first of the two switches was safety-related, and there were travelers issued subsequent to the one reviewed by the NRC inspector which properly identified the switch that was installed. This resolved the issue with the safety-related switch. The second switch was not safety-related and eventually the paperwork concerning that switch was also resolve WESTERMAN commented that all the NAMCO switches purchased by TUGC0 were qualified, even those installed in non-safety systems. WESTERMAN stated the reason there was some difficulty with the paperwork was that a number of the switches were replaced during testing and this required additional paperwor WESTERMAN made this violation an unresolved item until it could be determined whether the final paperwork was correct. WESTERMAN commented that some of the
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paperwork delay was because some travelers dated between 1982 and 1984 were still in the paper flow group.and had not been sent to the Document Control Cente .
The next proposed finding discussed by WESTERMAN was that TUGC0's procedures for handling IE Bulletins were deficient. WESTERMAN commented that when an IE Bulletin was received, the utility would inform the NRC as to what they planned to do to respond to the requirements in the bulletin. The NRC then normally verified what the utility did what it had stated it was going to d WESTERMAN did not believe there was any regulatory requirement that the utility have a separate system to track the status of IE Bulletin WESTERMAN considered PHILLIPS' proposed violation that TUGC0 had no focal point for tracking actions on IE Bulletins as being the same issue as the previous proposed violation. WESTERMAN did not believe the utility was required to have a central point where an inspector could go to locate all the paperwork on an IE. Bulletin. Additionally, these issues were going to be addressed by TUGC0 during their ongoing overall review of their actions in response to IE Bulletin WESTERMAN noted that after Region IV management reviewed and commented on PHILLIPS' drafts of inspection report 85-16/13, the drafts were returned to PHILLIPS for typing. Therefore, PHILLIPS was aware of all the changes made by Region IV to his inspection report. Additionally, WESTERMAN stated that after the final report was prepared, it was taken to CPSES for signature by the inspectors who were responsible for the various sections. WESTERMAN added there was no pressure put on the inspectors to sign the final repor WESTERMAN acknowledged, however, that although thd changes were discussed with PHILLIPS and PHILLIPS signed the final inspection report, he may have not been in full agreement with all the change WESTERMAN stated he was having problems with PHILLIPS' reports and had a lot of conversation with PHILLIPS about the problems. WESTERMAN noted that although PHILLIPS may have displayed an attitude of giving up and writing anything that WESTERMAN wanted, in actuality PHILLIPS never wrote a report that way. WESTERMAN stated that he tried to calibrate PHILLIPS to his way of ,
thinking, but he never told PHILLIPS that he could not write violation '
However, WESTERMAN noted that if PHILLIPS wanted to write violations, then they had to be proper and had to be based on the facts. WESTERMAN stated that Region IV had to be able to prove that the violation was a factual and technically competent violatio WESTERMAN also believed that PHILLIPS felt a lot of pressure because WESTERMAN l was under a lot of pressure, and he was going back and forth with PHILLIPS i over various issues. WESTERMAN asserted that while there were many discussions with PHILLIPS about technical issues, he never attempted to harass or threaten PHILLIPS. WESTERMAN stated he kept Region IV management infonned about the difficulty he was having with PHILLIPS' reports, and he provided a draft version of inspection report 85-16/13 to JOHNSON. WESTERFAN reported that JOHNSON went to CPSES and had a discussion with PHILLIPS (Attacnent D, pages 348-409, 573-631, 643-653, and 670-673).
Eric JOHNSON, Director, Division of Reactor Safety and Projects, Region IV, told OIA that beginning in November 1985, when he became the Acting Director,
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Division of Reactor Safety and Projects, Region IV, WESTERMAN came to him and explained the difficulty WESTERMAN and Ian BARNES were having with the quality of the inspection reports coming from the construction Senior Resident Inspector, PHILLIP In December 1985, WESTERMAN discussed a draft of inspection report 85-16/13 with him. WESTERMAN told JOHNSON that he had been discussing the draft inspection report with PHILLIP JOHNSON said that WESTERMAN was so frustrated with the report that he (JOHNSON) asked him for a copy of the draft report. JOHNSON read the draft inspection report, made some comments on it, and sent it back to PHILLIPS through WESTERMA There were items in the report that JOHNSON regarded as totally unacceptable. These items included overstated conclusions and technically wrong and incomplete findings. One issue involving NAMC0 switches was indeterminate in the report; however, the inspector was going to cite the ;
utility. JOHNSON put a comment on the draft that additional information should be obtained concerning whether there was a hardware problem in order to either cite a violation or to determine that the switches were acceptabl ,
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A second issue in the report involved 50.55(e) reports by the utilit I PHILLIPS had a proposed citation that there was no auditable file for 50.55(e) !
reports which would allow an inspector to track the action from point to '
point. JOHNSON stated the utility was required to maintain records, but there was no requirement that the records be in a form that would make it convenient for an NRC inspector to look at. JOHNSON noted that he and WESTERMAN held a
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meeting with TUGCc management over this issue, and TUGC0 was told that before they got their license, the NRC would follow up on all the 50.55(e) report TUGC0 had the choice of either making it convenient for the NRC, thereby allowing the NRC to perform the review faster, or making it difficult for the NRC. Nevertheless, NRC would take the time to complete the revie JOHNSON stated that he wrote on the draft report of inspection 85-16/13 that the proposed violation concerning the NAMC0 switches was unsatisfactory because the inspector had not supported a violation in the inspection repor JOHNSON believed the inspector had lef t as indeterminate an issue with an important piece of equipment. JOHNSON opined this, along with previous inspection findings, indicated that PHILLIPS was not spending as much time looking at hardware items as he was looking at records. He wrote on the report he thought PHILLIPS should spend less time apparently sitting and looking at records and more time out in the field looking at what was going on. JOHNSON stated that he did not discuss the draft report with WESTERMAN after he rpviewed it. He gave the report to WESTERMAN and told him to send it back to the site. Additionally, JOHNSON's conclusions about the draft report were drawn entirely from what was written in the report. He opined if he misread the report or did not understand what he was reading then someone should have told hi JOHNSON commented that when he reviewed the report, he focused just on paragraphs three and four and only skimed the remainder of the repor JOHNSON considered both paragraphs to be an unsatisfactory product by a Senior Resident Inspector at the GG-14 level. Concerning PHILLIPS' comments in the draft report pertaining to IE Bulletin 79-14 JOHNSON noted on the report,
" stick to the requirements." JOHNSON wrote this note because he considered PHILLIPS' comments to be opinion and not based on any written requirement JOHNSON also wrote on the report "I'm very concerned that we can't seem to get
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I better quality reports in a first draft," because JOHNSON thought that the draft. report was incomplete ir) a number of area Concerning the comment "BS" that JOHNSON wrote on the report, he stated'it tied in with another comment he made that "Most of the apparent violations cited are not violations. Records for the convenience of the NRC are not required." JOHNSON opined that the reason for these coments was the report was poorly written. Additionally, JOHNSON's coment on the report, "do not use this term unless you can define it," pertained to PHILLIPS' use of tM words " objective evidence" and was intended to convey the guidance that the inspection report should document what the file actually contained and not a judgement on the part of the inspecto Overall, JOHNSON stated his coments to PHILLIPS were intended to get him to write a better report. JOHNSON noted that other than the written comments i based on his review of inspection report 85-16/13, he had no direct discussion with PHILLIPS concerning his preparation of inspection reports. JOHNSON did not believe his criticisms were harsh considering they were levied against the product of a GG-14 (Attachment P, pages 5-12, 48-77 and 85-111).-
BARNES was interviewed concerning his involvement with inspection report 85-16/13. In regard to the proposed violations involving TUGCO's actions on 10 CFR 50.55(e) reports, BARNES stated that WESTERMAN handled these issues by himself. Regarding IE Bulletin 79-14, BARNES stated that TUGC0 hired Stone and Webster to verify that all the analysis'had been performed with respect to the Bulletin. This was an ongoing endeavor. Concerning the issue of records retrievability with respect to documentation of actions taken in response to IE Bulletins, BARNES stated that if the NRC inspectors went to the quality engineering supervisor, he could locate any record requested. BARNES acknowl-edged that PHILLIPS was not the only inspector that had trouble from time to time retrieving records. However, the records have always been retrieve Additionally, BARNES offered that TUGC0 did not have the best records re-trieval system and at times they have had difficultly retrieving records. In essence, TUGC0 has retrieved the records asked for; however, sometimes, in
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BISCO Electrical Penetration Seals Memoranda f PHILLIPS stated to 0IA that in November 1985, Thomas YOUNG, a Region IV consultant, reported to PHILLIPS two statements by BISCO company officials which appeared to be false with respect to BISCO electrical penetration seals meeting test requirements. PHILLIPS initially documented this information in a November 25, 1985, memorandum to WESTERMAN (Attachment B. Exhibit 19) with a recommendation that the Office of Investigations look into the matte WESTERMAN returned 'the memorandum to PHILLIPS and called it inflammatory. Per WESTERMAN's instructions, PHILLIPS rewrote the memorandum on December 2, 1985 (Attachment B, Exhibit 19), and addressed it through WESTERMAN to Gary G. ZECH, Chief, Vendor Program Branch, IE. This memorandum was taken by WESTERMAN to JOHNSO On about January 23, 1986, JOHNSON returned the memorandum to PHILLIPS, and he I also criticized it for being inflammatory. JOHNSON told PHILLIPS that he should have directed the memorandum to him (JOHNSON). PHILLIPS accepted the ;
criticism and revised the memorandum as JOHNSON wanted. On March 6, 1986, the
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memorandum (Attachment B, Exhibit 19) was sent to JOHNSO PHILLIPS' concern over this incident was that he. raised a potential safety issue in November 1985, and because management was worried about the protocol in documenting the information, nothing was done with the allegation until March 1986 (Attachment 8, pages 215-220).
YOUNG related to 0IA that while conducting a follow-up inspection at CPSES concerning the BISCO electrical penetration seals, he uncovered information which indicated BISCO falsely certified to TUGC0 that their penetration seals were tested and met requirements. Additionally, YOUNG was told by a BISCO official that test records had been destroyed in a fire during the summer of 1976. YOUNG stated this could not be possible because the test took place during the fall of 197 YOUNG related that when he raised the issue of the validity of BISCO's certification of their seals, it was not well-received by WESTERMAN. (YOUNG provided documentation concerning BISCO penetration seals -- Attachment I, Exhibit 2.)
YOUNG opined that, based on his observations of PHILLIPS' interaction with Region IV management, if WESTERMAN had his way, PHILLIPS would just say "yes, sir" to WESTERMAN and, thereby, eliminate a lot of pro,blems. YOUNG commented that the large amount of time WESTERMAN spent talking to PHILLIPS, plus the direction to rewrite and rewrite reports, could make PHILLIPS look unproductive as far as conducting inspections was concerned (Attachment I, pages 61-85).
With regard to the proposed violation pertaining to the certification of the BISCO electrical penetration seals, WESTERMAN related to 0IA that in draft inspection report 85-16/13, PHILLIPS had findings involving (1) TUGC0's l failure to adequately evaluate., document and report a construction deficiency in accordance with 10 CFR 50.55(e), (2) insufficient evidence of successful testing of BISCO seals, and (3) the filing of a false report by BISCO on which PHILLIPS recommended an Office of Investigations (01) investigation. PHILLIPS had obtained information that the records for a fire rating test at BISCO were destroyed by a fire during the summer of 1976, but BISCO maintained certifica-tion on these seal Regarding PHILLIPS' concern about the lack of an adequate engineering evaluation concerning the BISCO seals and TUGC0's failure to report a deficiency in accordance with 10 CFR 50.55(e), WESTERMAN stated since the utility prepared a TUGC0 Design Deficiency Report (TDDR) on the lack of documentation pertaining to test results there was no violation concerning TUGCO's documentation of the deficiency. WESTERMAN stated he told PHILLIPS i
that if he wanted to cite the utility for not reporting the deficiency in accordance with 10 CFR 50.55(e) or 10 CFR 21 then he would have no problem with that violation. However, the conflicting paperwork involved with the certification of the BISCO seals WESTERMAN was not certain it was a clear violation, and he noted that there would be paperwork that indicated there was no problem. WESTERMAN stated he did not direct PHILLIPS to write the violation because PHILLIPS was the inspector and he signed the repor WESTERMAN stated he used his prerogative and left the decision to PHILLIP If PHILLIPS wanted to look at something more, WESTERMAN stated he was not going to stop hi _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ______ - ___ _- ____-- -
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Concerning the po'ssible false report by BISCO regarding the certification of the BISCO fire seals, WES'ERMA_N related that PHILLIPS prepared a memorandum to him dated November 25, 1985. Because the initial memorandum addressed actions and conclusions related only to CPSES, WESTERMAN asked PHILLIPS to prepare a memorandum to go to the Vendor Branch, IE. WESTERMAN asked that the memorandum be factual so the Vendor Branch could use it as a basis for reviewing potential BISCO generic issues identified by PHILLIPS. As a result, PHILLIPS prepared a December 2, 1985, memorandum through WESTERMAN to the Chief of the Vendor Branc To the best of WESTERMAN's knowledge, WESTERMAN found the memorandum to be opinionated and to contain recommendations that WESTERMAN thought the Vendor Branch should decide. WESTERMAN asked PHILLIPS to rewrite the memorandum and gave the instruction that correspondence with IE was the responsibility of the Division Director, Eric JOHNSO He told PHILLIPS that anything going to IE should go through JOHNSO WESTERMAN stated the next memorandum was still opinionated and contained unnecessary recommendations. This memorandum was provided by WESTERMAN to JOHNSON and was the topic of discussions between PHILLIPS and JOHNSON. . PHILLIPS wrote the final memorandum, dated March 6, 1986, through WESTERMAN to JOHNSO WESTERMAN further opined that the decision to refer a matter to 01 should be made by the Regional Administrator or Division Director and PHILLIPS should not have asked for the 01 referral. WESTERMAN stated that JOHNSON had some ,
discussions on this issue with the Region IV Allegations Coordinator I (Attachment D, pages 526-527 and 642-643).
JOHNSON related to 0IA that, in January 1986, he had a meeting with PHILLIPS concerning a memorandum that PHILLIPS had prepared on the BISCO fire seal JOHNSON commented that PHILLIPS had written several versions of a memorandum on the BISCO seals which eventually was sent to IE. JOHNSON stated the original memorandum was from PHILLIPS to Gary ZECH, Chief, Vendor Program Branch, IE. JOHNSON believed PHILLIPS should have sent the memorandum through Region IV managemen Additionally, JOHNSON commented the original BISCO memorandum to ZECH which came to the Region requested an 01 investigation. JOHNSON did not think it was proper to request an OI investigation in a memorandum to the Chief of the Vendor Branc JOHNSON was also concerned that the thrust of the memorandum was not the technical problems with the BISCO seals, but instead was the possibility that BISCO may have falsified or destroyed records. JOHNSON did not believe this was a conclusion that could be arrived at based on the documentation presented in the memorandum. He believed the NRC did not have enough infonnation at that time to request an 01 investigation of BISC JOHNSON stated that, based on his reading of the memorandum, he did not discern a problem with a fire at BISCO in the suniner of 1976 which allegedly destroyed records created in October 197 JOHNSON stated that he asked Don DRISKILL, a Region IV OI investigator, whether there was sufficient information in the PHILLIPS' memorandum to warrant initiation of an 01 investigation. DRISKILL told him the matter seemed to be a vendor problem. JOHNSON decided to ask ZECH to put BISCO on the inspection list. He thought that the Vendor Program Branch could use the information in the memorandum sent to IE as background to highlight some of
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the areas the Vendor Program Branch should inspect. JOHNSN0' commented that the purpose of the memorandum,that he sent to NRC Headquarters (April 4, 1986)
was to point out possible generic concerns (Attachment P pages 15-18, 78-85 and 99-102).
Edwin F. FOX, Allegations Coordinator, If, was interviewed by OIA concerning his involvement with the issue involving the BISCO electrical penetration seals at CPSES. FOX stated he had previous involvement with respect to BISCO as part of the .IE allegations management system. This resulted from problems identified by Region III. FOX reviewed the April 4, 1986, memorandum from JOHNSON to J.G. PARTLOW, Director, Division of Inspection Programs, IE, and connented that the first problem IE had was the memorandum was sent to the
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wrong office. Because there was a technical requirement at issue, the memorandum should have been sent to NR FOX ensured the memorandum went to NRR for resolution. Based on his review of the memorandum, FOX stated there appeared to be a safety concern which needed to be addressed by NRC. FOX further opined that the BISCO issue could be a generic issue (Attachment Q, pages 7-13).
Thomas SCARBROUGH reviewed the concerns expressed by PHILLIPS that violations proposed by PHILLIPS and other inspectors in inspection report 85-16/13 were unjustifiably downgraded to unresolved items by Region IV managemen SCARBROUGH documented his technical assessment of these proposed violations on pages 23-27 of his July 8, 1986, memorandum and pages 4 and 5 of his November 25, 1986, memorandum (Attachment HH).
Stephen GOLDBERG performed a review of the technical issues contained in inspection report 85-16/13. He reviewed five issues that were specifically related to OIA as allegations by PHILLIP His assessment is documented on I
pages 14-18 of Attachment P9 .
_Connents Regardino Region IV Management's Enforcement Attitude Toward CPSES was interviewed concerning his knowledge of the attitude of Reaion JV manafkment towards identifying and documenting violations at CPSES. t ) stated he did not consider Region IV to have a strong enforcement program, an'd he believed the lack of a strong enforcement program had its roots in the attitude of the senior managers, which he stated included JOHNSON and WESTERMAN. He commented that, in his opinion, the senior managers did not evidence a strong commitment to ensure ,
conforinance with regulations and did not take a tough attitude regarding i enforcemen ..
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) stated that when he reported to Regiv.. IV, it was clear to him that the l l
" enior and middle management's attitude towards a utility influenced the decision of whether to take enforcement action. This attitude came to bear on the individual inspgetors.and how they perceived their job as guided by their senior management. t jbelievedthattheattitudeofRegionIVmanagement towards TUGC0 was n6t,to do work which would cause more problems for the utility. At the timei Jarrived in Region IV, he found the amount of inspection activity coinpared to the need was very small and, for a considerable period of time, almost all the inspections at_CPSES were done by the resident inspector with very little regional suppor ,
stated that
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TAYLOR, the first resident inspector at CPSES, had repeatedly requested assistance from the Region in -conducting construction, inspections, but the Region did not respon In addition to not providing assistance to inspect the plant,( lstateda favorite approach to discourage inspectors from writing violaYions was to worry the_ inspectors' work product to death and to question it to a great extrem added that he had a sufficient number of discussions with WESTERMAN,'who W$s the Region IV Enforcement Officer, to conclude that WESTERMAN did not really believe in enforcement as a means of achieving compliance with the regulations. Therefore, WESTERMAN participated in worrying the paperwork to the point that less than th,e numhgr of violations that could have been written were actually writte commented the manner used by WESTERMAN to reduce the number of viofations}was to argue with the inspectors that a finding was not a violation and to defend the utility on a violatio .
) acknowledged that all of WESTERMAN's contributions were not negativ ESTERRAN called the inspectors' attention to the need for, grea(er precision Ystated, in their language, WESTERMAN's attitudeand was that was beneficial.,
anti-enforcemen But overall, also s lated h'e was told a number of times that WESTERMAN did not,thiniI.a vio'lation was an appropriate vehicle to achieve corrective actio ) stated WESTERMAN would prefer to handle the matter by discussing it with the u'tility and have any documented record be observations in the inspection report rather than clear violation L ' Drelated that when WESTERMAN handled a disagreement between himself and 7n ins)ector, WESTERMAN would nonnally interact with the Br,anch Qitef, Eric JOHNSON, to gain JOHNSON's acceptance of his conclusions.# . . . noted that would result in people being lined up against the inspecto? who Mrote the violation. There would be a Sect' ion Chief, who might have no strong feelings; and a Branch Chief, attempting to make a decision based on the facts, in addition to being influenced by WESTERMAN who basically had an anti-enforcement attitud .
lstated he observed on the part of WESTERMAN, JOHNSON and a few others, contknual stream of consnents about watchirig PHIt. LIPS, not trusting PHILLIPS, and watching your back with PHILLIPS, whicy leoncluded was based upon PHILLIPS' performance at the South Texas P,13nt wnere he identified a number of deficiencies in the utility's operation. # opined there was some distrust and some dislike and apprehensiori abourhaving a strong-wille .
meticulous and capable person o the staff who was not easily swayed to a differentpointofview.[ further opined that WESTERMAN and JOHNSON were of like mind so an a) peal an inspector would not likely be heard strictly on its merit They would back each other up (Attachment R, pages 3-15, 18-19 and 55-56). .
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CIA interviewed a number of Region IV inspectors concerning whether Region IV 3 placed a strong emphasis on hardware inspections and downplayed inspections in j the QA areas. Additionally, the inspectors commented on whether they had been -
pressured by Region IV management to downgrade or delete valid violations from l inspection reports. Robert STEWART (Attachment S) stated he did not believe l Region IV downplayed QA issues. Instead, te thought there was overkill in the !
QA area. NRC recently developed 500 open items on CPSES and 90 percent of l
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them were mino The issues were paper problems and he thought that was ridiculou .
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, (Attachment T) believed Region IV excessively concentrated on Q I believ(d Region IV needed more engineers who were qualified to inspect waroware and understand technisal issues and who could make engineering judgments in the field,g )was never harassed or pressured by Region IV management to downgrade o'r del %te violations from inspection report Lawrence ELLERSHAW (Attachment U) stated Region IV management has not directed his inspection effort away from QA areas. Region IV management never pressured him to not write violations. Cliff HALE (Attachment V) stated that he is exclusively involved with QA issues at CPSES. HALE stated he has the freedom to identify, document, and report deficiencies. He said he has never encountered (ifficulty in presenting facts he believed were appropriat i(Attachment W) related that if Region IV assigned priorities to ireas, then ihmediate operational safety concerns are higher than QA issue However, there has not been an attitude by Region IV to lessen the impact of QA finding , s (Attachment X) related that as a Region IV Section Chief, he Txpected his * nspectors to focus their efforts on finding real safety issues as opposed to wasting a lot of time on paper work issues that had no safety significance. His instructions to his inspectors were to inspect the plant as thoroughly as time allows, document inspection results and findings, and present them, hopefully, in a way that represents the agency vie this was the policy in Region IV. He did not believe QA was separa.teHe thought from i
hardware. When an inspector looked at hardware he was also looking at how the utility's program functioned which caused the hardware to be properly buil If a problem was found with the hardware, then the inspector would start looking at the paper behind the hardware to determine what led,to the prgble He opined the hardware was the real issue, not the paperwor stated that to his knowledge, Region IV inspectors have been aT1 owed theJ'
freedom to conduct their inspections and to document their findings on inspection report s (Attachment Y) stated it was his impression that the QA emphasis
'at Re,gion OT may not have been as strong as at Region III, the previous region that was assigned to. At Region III, there was a section assigned only to QA~ area's'. , Jhas not encountered any problems with identifying and Documenting ti~ndin in 1.nspection reports. However, he was told by Jtha jhad observed what he thought were violations at s (CPSEj~andTomWEST N asked him to change his inspection ypport. [
told ""-%thathei lsaTo was # set over the h . .j refused ue..and his ma toobjection change the wasrepor that h was askek to change the repor jtold i e did not agree with changing the report, and he told llanagement i th wanted to change it, then make the change themselve .
Dennis L. JEW, Allen L. MAUGHAN, Willian 0. RICHINS, Jimy R. DALE, Mitchell K. GRAHAM, and Joseph L. BIRMINGHAM, all NRC consultants at CPSES, were interviewed by OIA. All stated that Region IV had not directed them to avoid looking at QA issues in favor of inspecting hardware. They all believed they had the freedom to inspect any area that required inspectio Additionally, all of these consultants stated they had not been directed or
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pressured in any way by Region IV to not document inspection findings or to downgrade or delete inspection. findings documented in an inspection repor None of the consultants had any problem with Region IV not issuing inspection reports the way they were written by the inspectors (Attachments Z-EE).
Wanda WARREN, NRC Secretary at CPSES, was interviewed by 0IA to obtain her perceptions concerning the activities involving PHILLIPS at CPSES. WARREN has been PHILLIPS' secretary since October 1985. Although WARREN had no first-hand information specifically concerning the matters under investigation, she provided 01A with her observations and opinions of interactions between PHILLIPS and NRC consultants at CPSES and between PHILLIPS and Region IV management (Attachment FF),.
James SUTTON, formerly a reactor inspector with Region IV, was interviewed by OIA concerning information he had regarding Region IV's regulation of the construction of CPSES. SUTTON was employed by Region IV from 1973 to July 4, 1984, when he retired. Since October 1984, SUTTON has been employed as a consultant for the utility at CPSES. Although unable to provide any direct information concerning the matters under investigation, based on his involvement with Region IV and his knowledge of the issues at CPSES, SUTTON provided OIA with general observations and opinions that were critical of Region IV's management of the inspection program at CPSES (Attachment GG).
Arthur B. BEACH, Deputy Director, Enforcement Staff, IE, was interviewed by OIA concerning at which point the NRC should no longer accept input from a utility concerning proposed violations developed during NRC inspection BEACH stated that generally it is the NRC's policy that the exit briefing is the utility's opportunity to dispute inspection findings. The exit briefing concludes the inspection period, and the subsequent inspection report documents activity conducted during the inspection period. Information provided by the utility subsequent to the exit briefing could be used by the utility in its response to a Notice of Violation if issued by the NRC. BEACH noted that the utility has 20 to 30 days to reply to a Notice of Violatio Additionally, the information developed by the utility would be considered by the NRC during the following inspection period. BEACH commented that an exception to this policy would be an instance where the utility's information showed the NRC inspector made an obvious mistake in fac However, the additional information must have existed during the period of inspection to be considered during the preparation of an inspection report. BEACH related that he is not aware of any written instructions which specifically address the question of when input shoulo no longer be considered; however, guidance published in various IE manual chapters concerning the conduct of inspections and the documentation of violations makes this unstated policy clear (Attachment 00).
James G. PARTLOW, Director, Division of Inspection Programs, IE, was interviewed concerning the appropriateness of the NRC accepting input from a utility relating to proposed violations during the period the draft NRC inspection report is being processed. PARTLOW stated normally inspection reports are issued within 30 days of the exit briefing with the utility.
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Although PARTLOW knew of no specific guidance in IE Manuals addressing the I issue of accepting input from a utility after the conclusion of an' inspection, l PARTLOW believed there are instances where it vculd be appropriate to accept
'
the additional information and delete the proposed violation from the
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inspection report. Generally these instances would depend on how soon after l completion of the inspection the new information was provided, as well as the nature of the proposed violation and the new information. As an example, PARTLOW stated that shortly after completion of an inspection, if the utility provided the NRC with a record that was difficult to locate and which resolved an issue, then it would be proper to delete the proposed violation from the report. However, if the proposed violation was an indication of a possible widespread problem, then it would be appropriate to document the finding in the final report. PARTLOW further explaiend that if the information provided by the utility was created subsequent to the inspection in response to a proposed violation, then it would not be proper for the NRC to use this input to delete a proposed violation from an inspection report (Attachment PP).
Summary of Review of Technical Aspects of Allegation 1 At 01A's request, Thomas SCARBROUGH, Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board (ASLPB), reviewed the technical concerns expressed by PHILLIPS that violations proposed by PHILLIPS and other inspectors as a result of their inspections findings were unjustifiably downgraded to unresolved items by Region IV managemen SCARBROUGH reviewed the proposed violations in Region IV inspection reports 85-07/05, 85-14/11, and 85-16/13, and the transcripts of 01A interviews with NRC inspectors and consultants. Based on his review, SCARBROUGH found that while the downgrading of violations in some instances was well within management'.s prerogative, there was sufficient evidence to support PHILLIPS' concern that several violations were downgraded without cause. Of the 16 issues that were specifically related to 0IA as allegations by PHILLIPS, SCARBROUGH found seven to require more information before a ;
violation could be imposed. For nine of the allegations, SCARBROUGH 1 consider.?d either that sufficient information existed to impose a violation or I that maragement's reasoning for downgrading, or otherwise treating the j violation, was questionable. SCARBROUGH stated that although he found no !
evidence that the downgrading of proposed violations had an adverse effect on j plant safety, he did consider certain instances of downgrading to represent '
poor management in Region IV (Attachment HH).
l Stephen GOLDBERG, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer, who is detailed to 0IA to l provide technical assistance, performed a review of the technical issues !
contained in inspection reports 85-07/05, 85-14/11 and 85-16/13. He reviewed the 16 issues that were specifically related to OIA as allegations by PHILLIPS. This review was to determine if Region IV management improperly downgraded, changed or deleted inspection findings and violations. Based on his review of 16 issues, he found nine instances where more work was required before any enforcement action could be imposed on TUGCO, and five instances where the reasoning used by Region IV management to downgrade the proposed ,
violations appeared questionable. In addition, Regional management identified l issues as unresolved items without directing the inspectors to take specific j
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action to resolve those items. This practice was contrary to the rec:uirements in. Chapter 0400 of the IE manu.al (Attachment MM).
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The technical advisors were not in agreement on all issues A comparison of the results of their reviews is set forth belo Scarbrough Goldberg Inspection Report 85-07/05 Concerns 1 and 2 Reactor Vessel Installation Inconclusive l Inconclusive
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Concern 3 Audit of Reactor Vessel Installation Inconclusive Inconclusive Concern 4 Spool Piece Marking No Violation Inconclusive Concern 5 Cement Mixing Blades 2
, Questionable No Violation Handling of Violation *
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Inspection Report 85-14/11 Concerns 1, 2, and 3 Records Shipment to Stone Questionable Questionable and Webster
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Scarbrough Goldberg (85-14/11 cont.)
Concerns 4 and 5 Records Shipment of CB&I Inconclusive Questionable Concern 6 ,
Temporary Storage, of Records Questionable Inconclusive a
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1 Inconclusive - There was insufficient information to determine whether l a violation was appropriat Questionable - There was sufficient information available to cite a violatio ____ ___ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ - _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____- __-
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Inspection Report 85-16/13 Concerns 1, 2, and 3 '
10 CFR 50.55(e) Questionable Inconclusive Concern 4 NAMCO Switches Not Properly Identified Questionable Inconclusive Concern 5 BISCO Seals Refer to IE; Refer to IE; Inconclusive Inconclusive
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Summary Inconclusive or No Violation Questionable Scarbrough 7 9 ;
Goldberg 11 5
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Conclusions Allegation I: Region IV Management Harassed and Intimidated Inspectors to Pressure Them to Downgrade or Delete Proposed Inspection Findings at CPSES o WESTERMAN had lengthy disagreements with PHILLIPS regarding the downgrading of inspection findings. One witness stated WESTERMAN
" grilled" PHILLIPS on an issue for five hours and he consid.ered that PHILLIPS was to the point of being " badgered."
o There were comments exchanged by PHILLIPS and WESTERMAN which PHILLIPS claimed were harassing and/or threatening. WESTERMAN either denied the comments or denied the comments were intended to harags or threaten PHILLIPS. OIA could not substantiate the cannents through independent source .
o WESTERMAN established a higher than normal threshold for assessing violations at CPSES. Whileatanotherblanthemighthavebeenmore ;
liberal in citing violations, he stated that at CPSES he was being very " tight" to make sure violations were absolutely corr 2c Because CPSES was in a contested hearing before the ASLB, WESTERMAN did not want to write violations the utility could argue were technically incorrect. He believed that would create unnecessary paperwork and could even raise questions regarding Region IV's technical competency, o PHILLIPS believed WESTERMAN unjustifiably downgraded or deleted proposed inspection findings concerning CPSES from Region IV inspection reports 85-07/05, 85-14/11, and 85-16/13. WESTERMAN, on the other hand, responded that he downgraded or deleted proposed findings because he believed the inspectors had proposed violations ,
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against TUGC0 that were either technically incorrect or inadequately {
develope A determined there were 26 proposed violations and I four proposed unresolved items that were either downgraded or deleted from the three inspection reports reviewed by WESTERMAN after he became the Chief, Region IV Comanche Peak Group, in Octcber 198 o 01A's technical reviews of 16 proposed violations determined that WESTERMAN used his prerogative as a manager to downgrade proposed violations when there did not appear to be sufficient information to support the violation. However, OIA found that in many cases the rationale used by WESTERMAN to downgrade the violations was fault Examples where 01A's technical advisor believed faulty reasoning was applied by WESTERMAN to downgrade violations were the lack of a TUGC0 audit of the installation of the Unit 2 reactor pressure vessel, the use of travelers as design control documents, findings involving the Stone and Webster and CB&I records, TUGC0's handling of records in the paper flow group, and the application of SSER 11 to TUGC0's failure to provide a temporary or permanent storage facility for records commingled with in-process documents in the paper flow grou o WESTERMAN identified several proposed violations as unresolved items to demonstrate to the inspector he did not avoid issues even though he believed further inspection activity would not develop I violations. This practice was contrary to the requirements in IE Manual Chapter 0400 and 061 Examples inclu'ded the issues of whether the traveler could serve as a design control document, whether travelers could be changed in the field without issuance of a nonconformance report, and whether TUGC0 needed to audit the installation of the Unit 2 reactor pressure vesse I o When WESTERMAN delieved Region IV inspectors did not develop sufficient information to adequately support proposed violations, he questioned the proposed violations. However, he did not provide adequate direction or guidance to the inspectors to obtain the additional information he believed necessary to either develop violations or resolve the issues. Instead, in most cases, he downgraded the proposed violations in the final inspection report Some examples of this practice were (1) not directing PHILLIPS to review the TUGC0 audit plan to determine if the Unit 2 reactor vessel was included, (2) not directing PHILLIPS to expand the sample size of the NAMC0 switches that were inspected to ascertain if additional documentation problems existed, (3) not directing PHILLIPS to determine the safety significance of the findings regarding the BISCO fire seals, and (4) not directing PHILLIPS to review the TUGC0 QA program to determine if the QA requirements for nonconformance documents such as 50.55(e) reports had been satisfie I o WESTERMAN and JOHNSON delayed two memoranda to NRC Headquarters l which were written by PHILLIPS to resolve ongoing technical issues l at CPSES. In the first case, they delayed a November 25, 1985, l memorandum for more than four months because they were dissatisfied
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with the manner in which PHILLIPS addressed and worded it. This
memorandum involved.potentially significant information regarding a possible generic issue with Bisco fire penetration seals. In the second case, an April 29, 1986, memorandum requested guidance from IE regarding the shipment of C8&I records off-site and TUGCO's records storage facility. As of July 22, 1986, the memorandum had not yet been submitted to NRC Headquarter o WESTERMAN deleted proposed violations from draft inspection reports based on information received from the utility well after completion of the inspections. The original issue and the additional inspection activity was not documented in the final inspection reports. While this action appeared consistent with Region IV policy as expressed by JOHNSON, in several instances the implementation of this policy was inconsistent with the policy as stated by IE. An example of this inconsistency was acceptance by WESTERMAN of TUGCO's January 9, 1986, memorandum to file to document a May 1985 TUGC0 audit of the QA records control system at the C881 l records facility. TUGCO's original failure to document their audit of the CB&I QA records had been discovered during the conduct of i inspection 85-14/11 in October 1985. Based on the January 9, 1986, TUGC0 memorandum, WESTERMAN deleted the proposed violation citing TUGCO's failure to document their audit from the inspection report, o' WESTERMAN and JOHNSON acknowledged the inspectors' disagreement with the manner in which proposed inspection findings were deleted or downgraded in, final inspecti repqrts. WESTERMAN and JOHNSON were also aware that PHILLIPS and Wid not concur with changes made
in inspection 1 reports and si ed tne reports only because management wanted them to. WESTERMAN and JOHNSON accepted this situation and took no action to address the inspectors' disagreement Allegation II: The Region IV QA Inspection Program at CPSES Was Inadequat PHILLIPS told OIA he arrived at CPSES in June 1984 and as part of the on-going Region IV inspection effort, was assigned to inspect the QA modules listed in IE Manual Chapter 2512, Light Water Reactor Inspection Program Construction Phase. The purpose of this inspection was to detemine if the TUGC0 corporate office,was properly managing corporate QA activities at CPSES. This inspection, which was documented in Region IV Inspection Report 84-32/11,was conducted during August and September 1984 and identified several weaknesses
- in the implementation of the TUGC0 audit program. In particular, several
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Level IV violations were identified as a result of the applicant's failure to (1) regularly review the status and adequacy of its QA program, and (2) l establish and implement a comprehensive system of planned and periodic audits of safety-related activitie PHILLIPS related that during the NRC inspection, the TUGC0 QA manager stated to PHILLIPS that this inspection was the first comprehensive audit of the TUGC0 corporate office by NRC since the construction pemit was issued in 1974 l (the Construction Pemits for Units 1 and 2 were issued in December 1974). i Consequently, PHILLIPS reviewed past Region IV inspection reports and was able !
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to identify only a few superficial, very focused technical audits but no 1 comprehensive in-depth NRC inspection of TUGC0 QA management since 1974 FHILLIPS stated to OIA that the NRC inspection program under Manual Chapter 2512 has been revised several times during the last few years. He stated the old program required a mid-QA inspection under procedure 35200, which should be a comprehensive look at all the activities that have, occurred by mid-projec PHILLIPS said procedure 35200 was performed on-site; however, no inspectors ever went to TUGC0 corporate Headquarters. He added that 35200 was conducted so superficially, it was almost meaningles After PHILLIPS returned from the inspection of the UGC0 corpora p office in September 1984,hewasaskedbd
~~ at that time .
Regio IV.(PHILLIPJ'
atthetime)toreviewpreviousRedonIVinspectionrepo(r~ts'and compare them to the requirements in IE Manual Chapter 2512. The rgsults of this review were documented in a January 13,156, memorandum from t
(Region IV. (PHILLIPS'L at' the time) to Eric JOHNSON, Acting Diretor, Division of ReactD MfetY(Attachment 1985) .
E)and Projects, Region IV (PHILLIPS' Division Dire -
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The January 13, 1986, memorandum addressed the NRC inspection program at CPSES and concluded that the implementation and documentation of the required inspection program by Region IV at CPSES between 1974 and 1984 was wea PHILLIPS' review of inspection data for CPSES, Unit 1, revealed that inspections of the applicant's QA program required by IE Manual Chapter 2512 were weak or nonexistent after the QA inspections for the construction pennit were completed in 1974-197 PHILLIPS' review also disclosed that Region IV QA inspections and reviews for CPSES, Unit 2, were not commensurate with the construction status of the plant. The memorandum also identified technical inspection procedures required by IE Manual Chapter 2512 that had not been completed by Region IV or not completed as thoroughly as the inspection records indicated. However, the memorandum also stated that additional and supplemental NRC inspections were perfonned at CPSES which provided some assurance that the licensee's QA program was acceptable. It further stated that these inspections did not identify an overall breakdown in the CPSES QA ,
program, and the specific areas of concern appeared to be salvageabl PHILLIPS emphasized the importance of the NRC's QA inspection program by noting the NRC inspection program is three-pronged. The NRC inspectors are supposeti to review and ensure that implementing procedures for work activities are in place prior to work starting. This inspection activity is followed by the NRC inspector reviewing actual work in progress. Finally, the NRC inspector reviews the utility's QA records for the work completed to ensure that the documentation reflects that the completed work activity was properly controlled by the utilit Some of the NRC technical inspection procedures that PHILLIPS identified as not completed at CPSES were required to be conducted while construction work was in progress. Consequently, the opportunity for the NRC to inspect these activities was lost. In these situations, the NRC inspector must rely on the utility's quality assurance / quality control (QA/QC) records to have assurance the work was completed properl Therefore, it was important for the utility
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to have an effective QA program to ensure their system for controlling and auditing work activities inclu.ded making sure quality control personnel were inspecting daily work activities and were documenting their inspection PHILLIPS commented that earlier NRC inspections had indicated the utility's QA inspection program was not adequately reviewing QC inspection activitie PHILLIPS opined that the TUGC0 audit program at corporate Headquarters should have disclosed this shortcoming; however, the August 1984 NRC inspection discovered the TUGC0 corporate audit program was not effective. PHILLIPS stated that because the NRC did not comprehensively inspect the TUGC0 corporate QA audit program until 1984, this weakness went undetected by TUGC0 and the NRC. Consequently, NRC could not fully rely on the accuracy of the TUGC0 QA records when NRC technical inspection procedures were not completed in tim (Attachment B, pages 10-13,16-18, 29-36, and 38-68).
Eric JOHNSON was interviewed concerning the adequacy of the Region IV QA inspection program at CPSES. JOHNSON related that the inspection program required by IE Manual Chapter 2512 had been a " moving target" because over the years its scope and requirements have changed. Consequently, it would be difficult to ascertain if previous Region IV inspections complied with current requirements of the manual chapter. JOHNSON stated that for some inspection modules where a timely inspection was not performed, the window of opportunity may have passe In those cases, NRC must perform compensatory inspection procedure JOHNSON believed the qeality and quantity of Region IV's QA inspection program at CPSES outlined by Manual Chapter 2512 was a non-issue. He stated there was a breakdown in the utility's QA program at CPSES; however, by completing the Comanche Peak Response Team Plan (CPRTP) the NRC can gather enough information to make a licensing decision for CPSES, JOHNSON acknowledged that by not performing timely inspections, NRC may have contributed to the weakness of the utility's QA program at CPSES; however, he emphasized that NRC is not a substitute for the utility's QA program. He stated the best NRC can do is to make sure the utility is doing all it can, and even that's a very small samplin JOHNSON related that he asked WESTERMAN to analyze the information p'rovided in the January 13, 1986, memorandum to detennine if additional inspection effort was required. JOHNSON noted that most of the observations in the memorandum had been overcome by events. JOHNSON explained that a significant development over the past year was the CPRT, which had a program plan that addressed the type of shortcomings identified in the January 13, 1986, memorandu:n (Attachment P, pages 38-45 and 122-136).
WESTERMAN was interviewed concerning the adequacy of the Region IV QA inspection program at CPSES, and asserted that over the years the IE inspection program outlined in IE Manual Chapter 2512 had changed. WESTERMAN ,
said that by virtue of the constant changes in the IE inspection program it I was difficult to implement some of tt , procedures in a timely manner. He added, however, that recent NRC inspection efforts such as the Construction .
Assessment Team, the Region IV Special Inspection, and the Technical Review l Team (TRT) may have addressed the QA requirements outlined in IE Manual Chapter 2512. However, Region IV had yet to determine to what extent these inspections meet 2512 QA requirement I l
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WESTERMAN.provided an explanation regarding Region IV's application of the QA inspection procedures during the period of 1974 to 1984 He said that up until 1980, there were only three QA modules for the construction phase. One of them was an as-required module, which means it may never be completed. In 1980/1981 IE added QA modules and'within the same year the inspection program was changed to a Priority I, II and III, which gave the Region the option of determining the level of inspection effort. According to WESTERMAN, a decision was made to cut back on the inspection effort at CPSES because a Senior Resident Inspector for construction had been assigned to the sit WESTERMAN said a decision was made to do only Priority I and II modules, and
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they dropped the QA modules under Priority III. In 1984 IE revised the A inspection program and did away with the Priority I, II and III system (Attachment D, pages 46-55 and 76-104).
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Jonce ing the information contained in the January 13, 1986, memorandum from i - to JOHNSON, WESTERMAN directed Robert TAYLOR to review the inspection histo at CPSES. WESTERMAN documented the results of this review in a May 23, 1986, memorandum to JOHNSON (Attachment II). In that memorandum, -
WESTERMAN stated:
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I believe that all the changes made in the IE program, and in particula the prioritization established in the September 15, 1981, revision of
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Manual Chapter 2512, make it impractical to draw any conclusions without taking such aspects into consideration. The IE Manual Chapter 2512, 766 data provides no method to account for IE program change I earlier reviewed the Manual Chapter 2512 QA modules and found that from 1975 to 1980, there were only three-QA modules and one of these was to be performed only once. Since 1980, there have been five changes and four QA modules added.- The 1981 prioritization dropped three of these four QA modules as well as many parts of the other Manual Chapter 2512 module Prioriti.zation was in effect through 198 . .
hasintervie (inspection progrTm at CPSES. ged cogerning the Region adequacy related that IV of the Region IV QA inspection 84-32/11 was conducted, in August ani September 1984, and during the inspection NRC learned TUGC0 had some deficiencies in its review of their QA program at CPSES. NRC found that TUGC0 failed to establish and implement a required system of comprehensive, planned and periodic audits safety-related activities and vendors associated with CPSES.'p f 3 considered the findings pertaining to the establishment and iiiiplemenfation of the utility's audit program to be significant. The failure by the utility to review the status and adequacy of the QA program and the failure by the utility to implement an audit program indicated the utility did not have control of its QA activities not was it assessing the adequacy of the QA activitiesthatwereinplace.krcase"alsosaidheconsideredthefindingsto be significant in this particu because the ' records of quality assurance at CPSES were placed in question by the efforts of the TR .- -
7 denti1(commented that when he made an overview of the types of problems being 1ed at CPSES, he came to the conclusion that the Region IV inspection
.proars applied to CPSES was less than appropriate and less than adequat believed the reason that the TRT and the CPRT existed was an attempt to
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recover the quality of CPSES which should have been verified during the past ten years of constructio .
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I ondersbrelated that during 1984 1985, he and PHILLIPS conducted a review to nd the status of the Region IV inspection program at CPSES. This was done for two purposes. First, it was to establish the status of the NRC inspection program and to use the status to modify or tailor the imC inspection program of CPSES, Units I and 2, to strengthen any weak area Secondly, the review was to provide input to the CPRT actfon plans so the licensee would fully address any safety concerns the NRC sight now develop .
because the NRC had not inspected the TUGC0 corporate QA program during a -
10-year perio )said that al'though Region IV conJucted some inspections of TUGC0's QA progra' s , they were not extensive or fully adequate. Consequently, if neither the utility nor the NRC had reviewed the status and adequacy of the TUGC0 QA program, then there were some concerns relative to the quality of construction at CPSES. With the information he and PHILLIPS developed during their review of the Region IV inspection program at CPSES, the NRC could modify inspection programs to provide the most assurance of the level of qual at- E (Attachment C, pages 5-11). (For details of the results of review of the Region IV inspection program at CPSES, see Attachment E .
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I* Region IV, was intervietyd conqtrning the adequacy of the Region IV QA 1Espec -
. tich program at CPSES. i .
related that during the summer of 1984, he was datatled to the TRT effort at10SES where he oversaw the completion of thq routine inspection program required by IE manual chapters and was responsible '
for c1gping otLt a number of miscellaneous allegations. Upon his assignment to CPSE Ifound that because Region IV had been pursuing the tesolution of many allegAions that were associated with CPSES, the Region had fallen behind in the completion of the inspection program. It was his initial impression there was a lot of inspection work still to be don While conducting inspections at CPSES, Region IV did not place any more emphasis than was called for by the IE inspection program on either QA inspections or hardware inspections. However, Region !Y inspectors discovered that QA type inspections, especially at the TU6C0 corporate Headquarters, had
,not besp completed according to the schedule called for by the IE manua g . j pined that Region IV was probably further behind in terms of templeffng the QA inspection program than the inspections involving direct observation of work at the sit As a result of, an.ovsrview of the Region IV insinction program at CPSES that herequestedL._....._)1earnedthattA ,Regian 11 QA ins wetion program was not as complete arit shcG1d have bee recalled t t as part of the review, PHILLIPS completed an infond k 'tatiufation of status of all Region IV inspections. PHILLIPS pointed out to him that as sult of the review he {
, identified the need to do additional inspections at ES in the QA are jalso noted that Region IV had missed some QA spections required by
,h IE'Tnspection program to be completed at.various stages of constructio . - 1 Consequently, in the sunner of 198%^ .jinstructed PHILLIPS to capture in
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one inspection effort as many of the prfviSEs inspection procedures as l
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possible, although recognized this was not the perfect opportunity to complete some of thh insp tions. As an example of this,1 cited the Region IV QA inspection effort relating to vendor QA progrTas. fome of the TUGC0 vendors had either completed their work or had very little work remaining on site. Therefore, it was difficult from an inspection standpoint to achieve a full appreciation concerning how good the QA programs of these vendors were because they were no longer on sit .
Nnspecti,connented that if Region ons when required, then theIVRegion had not completed would some not have of the QA a complete data base ..
to judge the adequacy of plant construction. He noted that the QA program is one important part of a set of management controit that the utility has to assure the plant is constructed properl added that the fact that the region may not have done an inspection *did nof necessarily mean the utility's program was inade It just meant that NRC had no basis upon which to judge the program.quat _
I J view, the NRC and Region IV hav'e recovered sufficiently from this d cit because, since 1984, a tremendous number of resources have been used at CPSES and much of the effort has been related to the adequacy of the utility's (AttachmentJJ, pages 2-8) quality assurance and quality control program . -
James GAGLIARDO, Chief, Reactor Projects Branch, Region IV, was interviewed concerning the adequacy of the Region IV QA inspection program at CPSE GAGLIARDO related.that while he was.the Division Director, Reactor Projects, Region IV, between January 1982 and January 1984, he was not aware of any concerns with the adequacy of the Region IV QA inspection program during the construction of CPSES. He stated that during the time he was assigned as the Deputy Director of the TRT, between July 1984 and February 1985, a group of inspectors from the NRC Headquarters looked at the status of Region IV's implementation of the IE Manual Chapter 2512 inspection program and determined that most of 'the modules had been completed. He added that later on in the TRT effort, QA inspectors looked at the QA inspection procedures and found that the QA modules had not been completed. GAGLIARDO learned that only 50 or 60 percent of some of the modules had been completed and the modules had then been closed. When asked by OIA whether more effort by Region IV to complete ,
the NRC QA inspection modules could have resulted in TUGC0 implementing I earlier action to correct problems with its QA program, GAGLIARDO replied that i it was hard to say. He explained that had Region IV been able to do more at CPSES, they may have surfaced some of these problems and had a handle on them {
earlier. Instead, it was the TRT that identified many of the problem (Attachment KK, pages 20-22).
Region IV, from j was interviewed
.concernid the adequacy of the Region 'IV QA inspection program at CPSE stated his belief that the attitude of Region IV management was that it 11d n8t want to create too many problems for the utility. He added that this was difficult to determine conclusively; however, when he looked at the facts, j he found that the amount of inspection activities compared to the need at the plant was very small, and that for a considerable period of time, almost all {
the inspections at CPSES were done by the Resident Inspector with very little
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regional suppor He stated that it was a fact that the inspections were not being don .
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further elaborated on the Region IV inspection program by opining that 7he R(gion did not have a strong orientation to QA programs. t believed that had Region IV had such a strong orientation over the jaar3, thf problems seen at CPSES, South Texas and Waterford would never have arisen. When asked if greater emphasis by Region IV on the QA aspects of the NRC inspection program at CPSES could havt resulted in TUGC0 implementing a better QA program at an earlier stage,L Tstated that he believed this to be true. He added that if the program ror QA i s not strong, then any deficiencies which occur in .
the construction organization will simply be magnifie ~
He stated that TUGC0 did not have a strong QA pyograg and the Region did not remedy
"very severethatdeficiency" situation over on thea part period of years. bV1further of Region to*haveconsidered it a not conducted an inspectiqn of GCO's corporate QA program and taken corrective actior .
However,3 did not believe the NRC should do the utility's jo i
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conenenter that ven though Region IV may not have fulfilled its -
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responsibilities, the utility cannot blame the NRC for its mistakes. However, the NRC would have better represented the public, both in tems of health and safety and in terms of expense, had Region IV demanded and obtained better quality assurance from TUGC (Attachment R, pages 6-9 and 23-29).
'Ian BARNES was interviewed concerning the adequacy of the Region IV QA inspection program at CPSES. BARNES stated his involvement with CPSES began -
in June 1985; therefore, he could not speak with any specificity to events that occurred prior to that date pertaining to the status of Region IV QA inspection program at CPSES. However, BARNES stated the IE Manual Chapter 2512 inspection program has been a dynamic program and in constant chang Logically, if the program was continually changing, the changes would impact on what was done in the past. 8ARNES stated he would not be able to make any judgement on the status of the Region IV inspection program until he was able to detemine exactly what was required at various points in tim (Attachment J, pages 66-67).
Robert G. TAYLOR, Project Inspector, Region IV, was interviewed concerning the adequacy of the Region IV QA inspection program at CPSES. TAYLOR's first involvement with CPSES was in February 1978 as a regional project inspecto TAYLOR became a resident inspector at CPSES in August 1978, and he remained at CPSES until January 1984. TAYLOR connented that when he first became a resident inspector at CPSES, resident inspectors were not required to perfom
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the inspections outlined in IE Manual Chapter 2512. The primary responsibility of resident inspectors was IE Manual Chapter 2592, which contained the so called "C" modules, and the regional inspectors completed the inspection procedures in IE Manual Chapter 2512. TAYLOR further noted that IE Manual Chapter 2592 did not contain any QA inspection module TAYLOR commented that inspectors concentrated their inspections on hardware instead of QA areas because the inspection program in IE Manual Chapter 2512 was structured that way. TAYLOR stated he was a strong proponent of looking at the end product and not on how it was achieved. TAYLOR recalled that until 1979 or 1980, the QA inspection modules in IE Manual Chapter 2512, concerning post construction permit requirements, only contained inspection procedure
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35200. TAYLOR further recalled that between 1979 and 1981, the South Texas
, project was consuming almost all of the Region IV resources that were not dedicated to the resident inspector program. Regional management had to decide where they were going to concentrate the finite manpower resources available. At that point in_ time, CPSES was not the priority. In early 1982, the CPSES hearings began, and from 1982 until 1984, the hearings plus resolution of allegations were about all of the inspection work that TAYLOR did at CPSE He said that examination of his inspection reports at CPSES would disclose that they were published further and further apart until the point where almost a year of inspection activity was documented in one of the (Attachment LL, pages 6-14, and 29-31).
Suminary of Technical Review of Allegation 2 At DIA's request, Thomas E. SCARBROUGH reviewed PHILLIPS' concerns regarding the NRC inspection program for CPSES. SCARBROUGH opined that based on his review, the QA inspection effort by Region IV for CPSES over the years was l inadequat '
SCARBROUGH compared the content of various QA inspection reports by Region IV with the inspection procedure guidance provided in past iterations of IE Manual Chapter 2512. SCARBROUGH considered as part of his ,
review the history of frequencies specified in Manual Chapter 2512 for the performance of the QA construction inspection procedures. He learned that a ,
significant number of the QA inspections specified by Chapter 2512 were not performed in a timely manner (Attachment HH). In regard to the specific Manual Chapter 2512 inspection procedures ' reviewed by SCARBROUGH, he found the following: i
-- InspectionProcedure35b20,AuditofApplicant'sSurveillanceof Contractor QA/QC Activities. Although required since 1977 to be performed between 5 months after docketing and construction com-pletion, this procedure was not satisfied until CPSES was nearing completio Inspection Procedure 35060, Licensee Management of QA Activitie Since 1980, the IE Manual has provided that this inspection is to be performed every 18 months. At least two inspections on this area were not performed as specified by Chapter 251 Inspection Procedure 35061, In-Depth QA Inspection of Performanc Since 1980, the IE Manual has provided that this inspection is to be performed annually. At least three inspections were not performed in accordance with this inspection procedur Inspection Procedure 35065, Procurement, Receiving and Storag Since 1980, the IE Manual has specified that this inspection be performed annually. At least three inspections that were to have satisfied this procedure were not performe Inspection Procedure 35100, Review of QA Manua Since 1976, this IE Manual has indicated that this inspection is to be performed as required. SCARBROUGH was concerned that the licensee needed to revise its QA manual late in the construction proces :
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Inspection Procedure 35200, Mid-Term Construction Permit QA Inspec-l tio Since 1976, the Manual has provided that this inspection is l to be performed between 18 to 30 months after the beginning of
) construction. This inspection was not satisfied at specified by the
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April 1976 version of Chapter 2512.
l Because the QA inspection procedures required by IE Manual Chapter 2512 were not satisfied by Region IV as to frequency of performance, SCARBROUGH opined that it would not be possible to rely on the QA inspection effort by Region IV as evidence of the safe construction of CPSES. Consequently, SCARBROUGH l
believed that other efforts such as the Construction Assessment Team Inspection 83-18/12, Region IV Special Inspection 84-26, the Technical Review Team activities, and inspections of technical work by Region IV over the years, should be relied upon to determine the adequacy of plant constructio SCARBROUGH concluded that:
The fact that the Region IV QA inspection effort was weak is not the major concern at Comanche Peak by itself, because the applicant's QA l
program could have been satisfactory despite the weaknesses in the Region IV effort. However, the Technical Review Team in Supplement 11 tc NUREG-0797 identified numerous deficiencies in the implementation of the applicant's QA program. In particular, the Technical Review Team con-cluded that failures by QA and QA personnel to detect deficiencies suggested an ineffective Brown & Root and TUGC0 inspection system. It therefore appears that the weaknesses on the Region IV QA inspection effort may have contributed to inadequacies in the applicant's QA pro-gra As a result I do not believe that the past Region IV QA inspection effort provides strong support for the safe construction of Comanche Pea Other efforts such as the Construction Assessment Team Inspection 83-18/12, Region IV Special Inspection 84-26, the Technical Review Team activities, and inspections of technical work by Region IV over the years, should be relied upon to determine the adequacy of plant con-struction.
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Because the requirements of IE Manual Chapter 2512, Light Water Reactor Inspection Program - Construction Phase, have changed over the past years, OIA reviewed past iterations of the manual chapter and prepared an array which sumarized the specified frequency of the QA inspection modules that were reviewed during this investigation (Attachment N),
Conclusion Allegation II: The Region IV QA Inspection Program at CPSES Was Inadequate Based on the available information, it appears that at CPSES Region IV did not satisfy ,the frequency requirements for the IE Manual Chapter 2512 QA l inspection procedures reviewed by OIA. DIA noted that the requirements of the l IE inspection program had changed over the years making it difficult, at this date, to determine if past Region IV inspections fulfilled the QA inspection procedures prescribed by the Manual Chapter. Additionally, none of the Region IV management officials interviewed by OIA could state whether the Region IV
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QA inspection program at CPSES met the IE Manual Ch6pter 2512 requirement The Region IV management officials could only conjecture as to how the Region IV QA inspection program complied with IE Manual Chapter 2512. Consequently, l it appears that it would not be possible to rely on the Region IV QA '
inspection effort as evidence of the safe construction of CPSES. This, in combination with the deficiencies identifiad b TUGCO's implementation of its QA program, means that to determine the .oequacy of plant construction it will be necessary for the NRC to rely largely on the detailed technical inspections I of various structures, systems and components that have recently been -
conducted by the NRC at CPSE t )
' Allegation III: Data Documented in Region IV's NRC Fonn 766 Inspector'q Report was Inaccurate '
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When PHILLIPS was interviewed by OIA, ho stat thatjhilehewasreviewing i the Region IV inspection program at CPSES for he identiffed problems with Region IV's documentation of inspections t CPSEY. PHILLIPS explained '
that he discovered instances of inspection procedures being docwented as 1 completed; however,. the actual inspections were not conducted ce not conducted as thoroughly as the record indicated. PHILLIPS stated the problems ranged from inspection work not documented and perhaps not done, to what appeared to '
be false entries or false documentation reported on work done by NRC inspectors. PHILLIPS identified that the problem was with the infonnation contained on Region IV's NRC Forms 766. Inspector's' Report, which were prepared by the inspectors to document the NRC inspectirm procedures addressed in inspection reports, and information provided by the N6 computerized syste As background, PHILLIPS explained that after the inspector prepares the 766 data forms, he attaches them to the referenced inspection report, and the information is then used to update the Region IV computerized inspcction and enforcement statistical data file. This file is a management infomation system used to track inspections that have been completed and to maintain a status of the inspection program at a project. PHILLIPS noted that during a review of the inspector's report it is nomal to identify some errors; how-ever, the errors he was finding with the NRC Fom 766 data were flagran ,
PHILLIPS related that, as a result of his comparison of the Region IV. NRC-Fom 756 data with the actual inspection reports, he identified discrepancies between what was listed on the NRC Forms 766 and what was documented in the inspection reports. Additionally, PHILLIPS stated his review showed QA program inspection procedures at CPSES had not been adequately completed by Re ion IV. PHILLIPS further explained that he was not disputing the in omation from the standpoint of exa:tness in recording percentages of j completion of various inspection modules; rather, his concern was over j
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inspection modules being recorded on the NRC Forms 766 as being 100% complete l
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when in the associated inspection reports there was no indication the area was looked at. PHILLIPS provided two charts, one for Unit 1, CPSES and one for l Unit 2, CPSES, that outlined the results of his comparison of the NRC Fom 766 data with inspection reports for Region IV inspection program at CPSES !
(Attachment B, pages 41-67 and 75-76; Exhibits 3-3 and 3-4 to Attachment B). I OIA interviewed a number of Region IV managers and inspectors concerning the accuracy of the infonnation recorded in the NRC Form 766 system. The general l
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consensus of those i'ntertiewed was that because of carele'ssness, lack of knowledge about the 766 system, and lack of quality control over information entered into the system, the information in the automated inspection and '
enforcement statistical data system was inaccurate. It was generally believed that little reliability could be placed on any information obtained from the 4 system. However, there was no indication that inaccurate data was intentionally recorded and put into the system in an effort to make the Region ,
IV inspecticn program at CPSES look bette '
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It appeared to 01A that Region IV personnel were uncertain about the proper method for completing the NRC Forms 766 and whether there should be a direct corelation between a reference in an inspection report and an entry on the 766 form. There was also confusion concerning how to determine the percentage of completion of an inspection module. These questions centered around whether
.perc.ent of completion should be viewed as a percentage of the inspection modules completed or as a percentage of the inspected work activity that was completed at the construction site. Frequent changes in the implementation of the 766 system over the years has also created confusion. Additionally, several individuals stated that certain information was recycled on the NRC Forms 766 merely to get the computer to accept the dat Summarv of Technical Review At 01A's request, Thomas E. SCARBROUGH reviewed the accuracy of the NRC Forms 766 that were highlighted by PHILLIPS in the documentation provided to 01 Based on his review of a number of NRC Fonns 766 for CPSES, SCARBROUGH determined the 766 data for CPSES was unreliable. SCARBROUGH noted discrepancies between the information on the NRC Forms 766 and the information documented in the associated inspection reports. He concluded that some of the NRC Fom 766 data for CPSES overestimated the extent of. completion of the Region IV inspection program (Attachment HH).
Conclusion Allegation III: Data Documented in Region IV's NRC Form 766 Inspector's Report was Ir. accurate
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Based on the information developed during this investigation, the data recorded in the NRC Forms 766 pertaining to CPSES is inaccurate and unreliable. The incorrect reporting ranged from inspection activity recorded on the NRC Forms 766 for which there was no documentation in associated inspection reports to listing inspection modules as 100 percent complete on the forms without completing the recomended inspection activity, merely to '
close the module. The cause of the discrepancies appears to be a lack of understanding on the part of NRC inspectors as to the proper method of
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completing the NRC Forms 76 &m0
' George
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. Mulley, Jr., Assigtant Director for investigations Office of Inspector and Auditor _____-__
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ATT/iCPVENTS Technical Issues Raised by PHILLIPS During OIA Intervie Interview of Shannon PHILLIPS, dtd March 19, 198 Interview of dtd April 10, 198 L J , Interview of Tom WESTERMAN, dtd July 10, 11, 21 and 23, 198 '
. m - Memorandumfro[
Director, DRSP Ntd January 13, 198 JteE.H. JOHNSON, Acting '_ Draft Inspection Report 85-07/05, dtd February 3, 198 Interview of y dtd April 9, 198 Interview of Charles J. HAUGHNEY, dtd June 17, 1986 and November 25, 198 Interview of Thomas Holton YOUNG, dtd May 29, 198 Interview of Ian BARNES, dtd Jul'y 25, 198 Matrix of Drafts'for Report 85-14/1 ' TUGC0 Speed Letter, dtd January 9,198 Interview of John GILRAY, dtd July 17, 198 Interview of Cliff HALE dtd July 24, 198 Matrix of Drafts for Report 85-16/13, dtd May 12, 198 Interview of Eric JOHNSON, dtd July 22, 198 Interview of !!dwin F. FOX, Jr., dtd July 17, 198 dtd June 24, 198 Interviewo( Int &rview of Robert C. STEWART, dtd May 28, 198 e- - Interview ofg dtd May 28, 198 Interview of L5wrence E. ELLERSHAW, dtd July 24, 198 ' Memorandum from H.S. PHILLIPS, to T. WESTERMAN, dtd April 29, 198 ,dtd July 9, 198 Interview of Interview of dtd July 9, 198 Interview off ldtdJuly9,198 P.'
O Interview of Dennis Lee JEW, dtd June 26, 198 A Interview of Allen Louis' MAUGHAN, dtd June 26, 198 B Interview of William Dwaine RICHINS, dtd June 26, 198 C Interview of Jimmy Richcrd DALE, dtd June 26, 198 D Interview of Mitchell Keith GRAHAM, dtd June 26, 198 E Interview of Joseph Lee BIRMINGHAM, dtd June 26, 198 F Interview of Wanda WARREN, dtd July 24, 198 .
G Interview of James SUTTON, dtd March 20, 198 H Memoranda to George MULLEY, JR., OIA, from Thomas G. SCARBROUGH, dtd July 8. July 15, 1986, November 5, and November 25, 198 I Memorandum to ,
E.H. JOHNSON, from T.F. WESTERMAN, dtd May 23, 198 J Interview of 4 dtd June 25, 198 K Interview of James GAGLIARDO, dtd July 23, 198 L Interview of Bob TAYLOR, dtd July 22, 198 *
MM. Technical Review of PHILLIPS' Issues Contained in Comanche Peak Inspection Reports, prepared by Stephen GOLDBER N Frequency of QA Modules Based on Past Versions of the MC 2512 Progra . Interview of Arthur B. BEACH, dtd November 24, 198 *
P Interview of James PARTLOW, dtd November 26, 198 .
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TECHNICAL ISSUES RAISED BY PHILLIPS
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INSPECTION REPORT 50-445/85-07; 50-446/85-05 (85-07/05)
PROPOSED FINCING Failure to translate design criteria into installation specifications, procedures and drawings; and failure to control deviations from the requirements contained in these document . Failure to maintain tolerances required and failure to report tolerance deviations on a non-conformance repor .
Failure to perform audits or surveillance of reactor pressure vessel specifications, procedures and installatio j 4 l For the CVCS spool piece, failure to maintain traceability of item by j applicable specification and grade of material and heat number of heat cod { No objective evidence (records) that mixing blades had been inspected quarterly since trucks were placed in service in 197 .
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Attachment A l g
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INSPECTION REPORT 50-445/85-14; 50-446/85-11 (85-14/11)
-PROPOSED FINDING
' TUGC0 failed to have/use procedures to control shipment of original records to Stone and Webste . Original design records shipped in cardboard boxes to Stone and Webster.* No backup copy of records made for records shipped to Stone and Webster.* Failure to control and account for records transferred to Stone and Webste Site records of Chicago Bridge and Iron shipped to Houston, Texas in cardboard boxes.**
No backup * copy of records made for records shipped to Chicago Bridge and Iron. * TUGC0 failed to inventory records sent to Chicago Bridge and Iro . Failure to provide temporary or permanent storage facility for records co-mingled with in-process documents in paper flow grou c
- and ** Items were combined for the purpose of this investigation, j
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3-INSPECTION REPORT 50-445/85-16; 50-446/85-13 (85-16/13) .
PROPOSED FINDING 1. Failure to develop / implement procedure. to demonstrate 50.55(e)
deficiencies correcte . Failure to revise implementary procedures containing 50.55(e)
reportin Failure to maintain retrievable 50.55(e) fil.! . NAMCO switches IEB 79-28 were not properly identified on traveler . Insufficient evidence of successful testing of BISCO fire seals - filing of false report by BISCO - Validity of BISCO seals questione a
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